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COPYRIGHT DEPOSITi 



Sixty Years of St. Lawrence 




SAINT LAW RE NC E 



Reproduced from an 
Old Spanish Panel 









SIXTY YEARS OF 
SAINT LAWRENCE 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE CLASS OF 1916 



06 y&p SoKttv . . . dXX elvau dekei 



CANTON, NEW YORK 
ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY 

1916 



*$ 



COPYRIGHT, I916, BY 
ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY 



THE •PLIMPTON 'PRESS 

NORWOOD-MASS • U • S »A 



JUN 12 1916 



CI.A433500 

0. (. 



BOARD OF EDITORS 

Editor-in-Chief 
Malcolm S. Black 

Assistant 
At wood B. Oatman 

Associate Editors 

Howard E. Dygert Dana A. Maloney 

Adelaide F. Jamieson Angela W. Cortright 

Robert E. Loveless Stanley M. Brown 

Mary Russell Mae G. Shannon 

Clarence J. Cowing 

Business Manager 
G. Atwood Manley 

Assistants 
Dean H. Moore Allan C. Twombly 




THE SEAL OF ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY 

Arms: Gules, cross bottony Argent; quartered with 
Sanguine, open book Argent; edges, covers, and 
clasps Or 

The seal contains a shield with the arms on a circular 
field Or, on which is the motto fides et Veritas Gules, 
and on the rim the words VNIVERSITAS SANCTI 
LAVRENTII IN NOV' EBOR' MDCCCLVI 



PREFACE 

AT commencement in 1906, on the occasion of the 
celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 
founding of St. Lawrence University, a committee 
of the Alumni Association, comprising Messrs. R. C. 
Ellsworth, '95, N. L. Robinson, 'jj, A. B. Hervey, T.S. 
'6i, and J. D. Corby, T.S. '86, was appointed to prepare 
a history of the University, treating of the first half- 
century of its existence. Two years later, Professors C. K. 
Gaines and G. R. Hardie were added to the committee. 
An organization of the committee was effected at that 
time, and a preliminary outline of the proposed contents 
of the book was drawn up. A considerable number of 
persons were asked to contribute portions of the work cov- 
ering topics with which they were severally familiar. Such 
contributions were made by President Gunnison, Doctor 
I. M. Atwood, the Honorable Vasco P. Abbott, '6j, the 
Honorable James O'Neill, '71, the late Doctor Richmond 
Fisk, Doctor J. M. Payson, T.S. '74, the Honorable 
L. P. Hale, '76, Professor C. K. Gaines, '76, Nelson L. 
Robinson, 'jj, Mrs. C. K. Gaines, '78, John L. Heaton, 
'8o, Irving Bacheller, '82, Professor R. D. Ford, '85, 
Doctor James D. Corby, T.S. '86, Doctor J. M. Atwood, 
'89, Professor George R. Hardie, '90, E. B. Lent, '92, G. I. 
Woolley, '94, F. J. Arnold, '96, W. W. Read, '96, Mrs. 
E. L. Hulett, Ethel Robinson, '05, and Horace C. Hale, 
'09. F. N. Cleaveland, f yy, secretary, and G. S. Conkey, 
'83, treasurer, of the University, have assisted in furnish- 
ing or verifying many statements of fact. Many minor 
contributions have come from still others, some of them 
undergraduates, too numerous for mention here. With 
all it has been a labor of love, and their only aim has 



Vlll PREFACE 

been to serve the college and tell the truth as well as 
they might. Some matter which originally appeared in 
The Laurentian has been copied or adapted without specific 
acknowledgment. 

The formulation of the general plan of the book, the 
gathering of a large part of the material and the group- 
ing of it in chapters according to the original design, was 
mainly the work of Professor Hardie. When this stage 
had been reached a long halt followed. The subscriptions 
were not yet adequate, no definite arrangements had been 
made for publication, there was still much labor to be 
performed in preparing the copy; no one had courage to 
proceed. Finally, in the fall of 1914, at the joint sug- 
gestion of Professors Gaines and Hardie, the class of 1916, 
which was then planning to issue an annual of the usual 
ephemeral type, decided in lieu of that to complete and 
publish this far more valuable and lasting memorial; and 
in commemoration of their graduation date in the sixtieth 
year since the founding of the University, they chose as 
the title Sixty Tears of St. Lawrence. Great credit is due 
to the business manager, Mr. G. A. Manley, who secured 
the necessary number of subscriptions and made admi- 
rable arrangements for publication by one of the best 
book-publishing firms in the country, and to Mr. Malcolm 
Black, chief of the editorial staff, who zealously collabo- 
rated with Professor Gaines in the heavy task of complet- 
ing the copy and following it through the press-work. 

But upon Professor Gaines in largest measure devolved 
the final burden and responsibility, — the molding of the 
mainly excellent but often amorphous material into the 
unity and coherence of a real book, an informing history 
of the growth of the University and an adequate expres- 
sion of its spirit. For this function he was, no doubt, 
somewhat specially fitted, partly by previous experience 
in book-making and still more by intimate association 



PREFACE IX 

with the college life extending over a period of forty-six 
years — for St. Lawrence was only in its fourteenth year 
when he first stood in its shadow and fell under its pecu- 
liar spell. The task proved laborious beyond all expecta- 
tion, and the book has swelled to almost twice its original 
dimensions; but if his discharge of the service thus imposed 
upon him is not found too seriously defective — and he 
has had his hours of discouragement and doubt — it is 
gladly rendered as perhaps his last important tribute to the 
college that he has served so long and loved so well. 

A book that has come into being in such a manner as 
this one, proceeding from so many minds and taking form 
under successive hands, is almost like a product of folk- 
lore — it is as authorless as the Homeric poems. And 
perhaps, if one reads with a sympathetic mind not too 
heedful of constructive faults, it will be felt to have some 
trace of the epic spirit, — for it is really a great theme, 
this life-story of the development of an American college, 
a true offspring of the soil, which has slowly grown on its 
barren, wind-swept hill from a stunted sapling to a sturdy 
tree. And the flavor of it all is in this book — the more 
because of its folk-lore quality and episodic structure. 
But in such a work — apart from a few special chapters 
and a few explicitly quoted passages — there should be 
no attempt to trace authorship or hold any particular 
contributor responsible for any phrase or sentence. Not 
even the final reviser could say with any assurance what 
ultimate elements have entered into any part, — and this 
statement applies in some degree even to the preface in 
which it appears. Much care has been used to be strictly 
faithful to the facts in every detail, and despite one of 
the chapter headings there is nothing of a mythic charac- 
ter in any portion of this narrative; but all should be 
taken impersonally, as a sincere and wholly unconven- 
tional outpouring of the great heart of St. Lawrence. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introductory: The Legend of St. Lawrence 3 

The story of his martyrdom — Famous churches and works of art in 
his honor — The memorial window — Origin of the college name and 
motto. Fides et Veritas. 

Chapter I: Foundation of the University 7 

Agitation and events leading up to the establishment of the institution 

— Granting of charter — First board of trustees — Laying the corner- 
stone — First meeting of the board — Grant of twenty-five thousand 
dollars by the legislature. 

Chapter II: Theological School — Days of Trial 17 

Early history — Doctor Ebenezer Fisher — Problems, financial and 
educational — Increasing the teaching forces — The Civil War — Pro- 
gress arrested — Suggested removal to Massachusetts — Seeking endow- 
ment — Doctor Cone — Doctor Lee. 

Chapter III: Theological School — Later Growth 28 

New problems — Accession of Doctor I. M. Atwood to the presidency — 
Building of Fisher Hall — Increase of funds — Doctor Cone's retire- 
ment — Call of Doctor Forbes — Crisis in the college — Professor 
Fisher — Retirement of President Atwood — President Almon Gunni- 
son — Professors J. M. Atwood, G. E. Huntley, and H. P. Morrell 
called. 

Chapter IV: College of Letters and Science — The Sowers 39 

Preparatory school opened by John Stebbins Lee — Creating educa- 
tional ideals — Professor J. W. Clapp — Pecuniary struggles — The 
Civil War — Professor Nehemiah White — Professor Moses Marston 

— Recollections of early students — Poem, The Sowers. 

Chapter V: Progress and Poverty 56 

Election of President Fisk — A question of jurisdiction — Canvass 
for funds — Tree Holiday instituted — Herring Library — President 
Fisk resigns. 

Chapter VI: Tantae Molis Erat 66 

Election and administration of President Gaines — His character and 
work — Professors J. H. Chapin, J. S. Miller, Lucy G. French, A. Z. 
Squires, B. J. Pink, W. B. Gunnison, C. K. Gaines, H. H. Liotard, 
Henry Priest, C. M. Baker, and R. D. Ford — The service required — 
Poem, Imo Pectore. 



Xll CONTENTS 

Chapter VII: The Crisis.. 80 

The menace of inadequate endowment — The college threatened with 
extinction — The great rally and the crucial moment — The spirit of 
1886 — How St. Lawrence was saved — A celebration — Song, The 
Scarlet and the Brown. 

Chapter VIII: Early Undergraduate Activities 97 

The old chapel and its associations — The Thelomathesian Society 
and its eventful history — Scarlet and Brown — College politics — 
Tree Holiday and its legends — Song, 'Niversity St. Lawrence. 

Chapter IX: The Age of Fable 115 

Diary of an undergraduate — A midnight escapade — Tree Holiday 
reminiscences — Rhetoricals — Plain living — A retrospect — Poem, 
Jam Dies Carpti. 

Chapter X: Fraternities and Secret Societies 140 

The P. D. Society — Alpha Sigma Chi — Beta Theta Pi — The Brown- 
ings — Kappa Kappa Gamma and Zeta Phi — Alpha Tau Omega — 
Delta Delta Delta — Phi Beta Kappa — Phi Sigma Kappa — Chi Zeta 
Sigma — Omega Gamma Sigma and Pi Beta Phi — Chi Zeta Sigma — 
Old P. D. song, Genesis. 

Chapter XI: Undergraduate Publications 171 

The St. Lawrence University Press — Gridirons and other annuals — 
The Laurentian — The Hill News — Gleanings from the College Cata- 
logue — Poem, Our Little List. 

Chapter XII : Oratory and Music 189 

Primitive conditions — The Sophomore Assembly — Prize contests — 
Local debates — Intercollegiate debates — Singing in early days — 
Glee clubs — St. Cecilia club — Banjo and mandolin clubs — College 
orchestra — Musical composition — Inauguration hymn, St. Lawrence. 

Chapter XIII: The Ascending Effort 210 

Election and administration of President Hervey — Improved condi- 
tion of finances — Woman professorship — Increase in number of 
students — Disciplinary methods — Resignation of President Hervey 
— Election and administration of President J. C. Lee — Changes in 
the faculty — The gymnasium — Era of unrest and transition. 

Chapter XIV: Administrative Organization 225 

New educational ideals — Professor Hardie — Entrance requirement 
raised — Emphasis on scholarship — Growth of curriculum — Classi- 
cal library — Laboratories — Elective courses — System of awarding 
honors — Phi Beta Kappa established — Internal administration — 
Office of recorder — Song, St. Lawrence, of Course. 

Chapter XV: The Work and the Workers 241 

Further discussion of the formative period and the development of 



CONTENTS Xlll 

the curriculum — Ancient languages — Modern languages — Psy- 
chology, ethics, science of religion — History and economics — English 
composition and literature — Parliamentary law — Fine arts — Mathe- 
matics — Instruction in science — Geology and mineralogy — Chemis- 
try and physics — Biology — Inauguration Ode. 

Chapter XVI: The Epoch of Expansion 262 

Unification of the government of the University — Election of Presi- 
dent Gunnison — Richardson professorship — Lewis professorship — 
Transfer of Clinton Liberal Institute to Canton — Cole Reading Room 

— Athletic Field — Carnegie Hall — Richardson Hall remodelled — 
Weather Bureau Station — Minor improvements — New departments 

— Administration of finances — Increase of endowment — Change in 
mode of electing trustees — Increase in number of students. 

Chapter XVII: The Culminating Achievement 276 

Two hundred thousand dollars added to the endowment by the efforts 
of President Gunnison — His arduous campaign — The celebration — 
The new salary scale — The death of Doctor Henry Priest — The 
resignation of President Gunnison — Tributes and honors — The fare- 
well — Poem, Our Own. 

Chapter XVIII: Later Student Activities 297 

The Gym Fund — Press Association — Good Government Club — 
Women's Forum — Young Women's Christian Association — Al Ki — 
Commons Club — Gaines Literary Society — Honor system and code 

— Alumni organization. 

Chapter XIX: Dramatics 312 

Early efforts — Pinafore — The Latin Plays — Der NefFe als Onkel — 
College Dramatic Club — Erminie — As You Like It — The Merchant 
of Venice — Midsummer Night's Dream — The Man on the Box — 
She Stoops to Conquer — Dramatic organization and later plays. 

Chapter XX: Athletics 327 

The Athletica — Field Day — Rugby — Faculty Belt — Lewis Medal 

— Fit2gibbons and Church — Baseball — Football — Professor Ford 
and Athletic Council — Triangular Meet — Athletic Field — Athletic 
Fund — Hammond Cup — Basketball — Poem, To a Dead Classmate. 

Chapter XXI: Law School 344 

Foundation and d scontinuance of first Law School — Inception of the 
Brooklyn Law School — Its affiliation with St. Lawrence — Organiza- 
tion and government — Rapid growth — Law School societies. 

Chapter XXII: School of Agriculture 348 

Establishment — Purpose of the school — Erection of main building — 
Initial difficulties — First instructors and students — Courses in manual 
training and domestic science — New buildings and added facilities — 
Faculty changes — Growth in numbers and development of curriculum. 



XIV CONTENTS 

Chapter XXIII: Clinton Liberal Institute 359 

Origin of the school — Ties connecting it with St. Lawrence — Original 
purpose — Early teachers — Doctor T. J. Sawyer — Dolphus Skinner 
— Financial strain — Transfer to Fort Plain — Doctor L J. Fletcher — 
Principal C V. Parsell — Military instruction — Period of decline — 
Loss of main building by fire — Transfer to Canton and union with 
St Lawrence. 

Appendix: Track and Field Record 369 

Laurentian Book Catalogue , 371 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Saint Lawrence Frontispiece v 

Richardson Hall Facing page 46 

Almon Gunnison, D.D., LL.D 262 

Scene from the Latin Play 318 ^ 

Main Buildings of State School of Agriculture .... 348 K 



Sixty Years of St. Lawrence 



Sixty Tears of St. Lawrence 

INTRODUCTORY 
THE LEGEND OF ST. LAWRENCE 

THE STORY OF HIS MARTYRDOM — FAMOUS CHURCHES AND 
WORKS OF ART IN HIS HONOR — THE MEMORIAL WINDOW 
— ORIGIN OF THE COLLEGE NAME AND MOTTO — FIDES 
ET VERITAS. 

SAINT LAWRENCE, according to tradition, was a 
native of Huesca, in Spain. 1 At an early age he 
went to Rome to study, and while there became so 
well known for his meekness and blameless life that he 
was chosen archdeacon by Pope Sixtus II. All the treas- 
ures of the church, consisting of vestments, plate, and a 
fund of money, were entrusted to his care. 

During the bitter persecutions in the reign of Valerian, 
Sixtus was denounced as a Christian, imprisoned, and 
sentenced to death. Grieving at this, St. Lawrence is said 
to have addressed him with the words, "Whither goest 
thou, O my father, without thy son and servant?' 5 He was 
answered with a prophecy: "Within three days thou shalt 
follow me." When St. Lawrence heard this, he rejoiced 
that he too was deemed worthy of the crown of martyrdom; 
but fearing lest the funds which he held in trust fall into 
the hands of the persecutor, he made haste to gather 
together all the money and treasures of the church, and 
distributed them among the poor. 

1 The picture in the Gaines window in Richardson Hall is copied from 
an old painting on wood, purchased in Spain by Frederick Gunnison and by 
him presented to the University. 



4 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Now even in that early day the church of Rome pos- 
sessed much wealth, which the Prefect of the City had 
long viewed with eager eyes. He therefore sent for St. 
Lawrence and demanded the treasures; whereupon the 
Saint — perhaps not quite unconscious of the humor of his 
act — went out through the city assembling the poor, the 
blind, and the crippled, who were the special care of the 
church. These, together with the widows and virgins of 
the church — in all a formidable array — he led before the 
Prefect, assuring him that these were the treasures of the 
church and exhorting him to repent. Then the Prefect, 
disappointed in his greed and enraged at what seemed to 
him a mockery, resolved to inflict upon St. Lawrence 
that exceptionally cruel punishment which has made his 
martyrdom so celebrated. He made ready a huge grid- 
iron, under which was prepared a great mass of live coals, 
half extinguished however, so that the victim might linger 
long in his torment. On this iron bed St. Lawrence was 
bound with chains, and suffered indescribable anguish until 
death relieved him. Not for a moment did his courage fail 
him. Believers who stood near claimed that an angelic 
light of joy appeared upon his face, and that a sweet odor 
arose as his body was consumed. That strange mingling of 
eccentric humor with devoted courage which has made the 
gruesome legend so universally appealing continued with 
him to the end. Almost with his latest breath, so we are 
told, when one side was already completely broiled, he 
called gayly to his tormentors, — "Now turn me; this 
side is quite done." Thus, with a light-hearted jest upon 
his lips, the hero died; and it is recorded that many Roman 
noblemen who saw his steadfast endurance under such 
atrocious tortures so marvelled at the sustaining power of 
his faith that they became converts; and Prudentius even 
says that his martyrdom brought about the overthrow of 
idolatry in Rome. 



THE LEGEND OF ST. LAWRENCE 5 

After his death, so the narrative continues, his friends 
bore away the body upon their shoulders and buried it 
in a field near the ancient Porta Tiburtina, on the road 
to Tibur. Later a church was built over his tomb and 
called after his name; and this is now one of the five 
patriarchal churches in Rome. Many other churches, 
however, bear the name of St. Lawrence, and several 
cities regard him as their patron, Nuremburg and Genoa 
among the number. He is especially venerated in Spain, 
his native land, where the famous church and palace 
called the Escurial (because designed in the form of a 
gridiron) was erected in his honor by Philip II in the 
sixteenth century. 

The day assigned to his memory in the Ecclesiastical 
Calendar is the tenth of August. Upon that day of the 
month in the year 1535 a French explorer discovered the 
great estuary and bight of the sea now called the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, and was moved by this circumstance to 
give it the name of the martyred saint. From the gulf 
was named the river, and from the river the county 
from which St. Lawrence University derives its title. 
Remote and indirect, therefore, is the original connection 
between the college and its patron saint. Yet in another 
way the connection is close and real; for, assuming as 
its own the spirit of this Christian hero whom no fear 
could induce to betray his trust, who devoted his life to 
service and never faltered in the performance of his duty,, 
St. Lawrence University has chosen as its official motto, 
Loyalty and Integrity, Fides et Veritas. 



SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 



FIDES ET VERITAS 

By Nelson L. Robinson, '77 

Saint Lawrence, dear Mother, thy praises we sing, 

And with grateful and reverent heart 

We pray for the blessings the future may bring, 

Exalting thee, queen that thou art. 

Sturdy, honest, and faithful thy teaching has been, 

Ever true to the lines on thy shield. 

May its fruits in the lives of thy children be seen 

To thy nurture fit honor to yield. 

May thy sons and thy daughters to God and to man 

And to truth and to thee ever cling; 

In the triumph of right may they march in the van, 

May thy name in their jubilees ring. 

Dear Mother, may riches abundant and fame 

Be thine in the years that await; 

But still may thy motto, thy hope be the same, 

May thy Faith and thy Truth not abate. 



CHAPTER I 
FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY 

AGITATION AND EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE ESTABLISH- 
MENT OF THE INSTITUTION — GRANTING OF CHARTER 
FIRST BOARD OF TRUSTEES LAYING THE CORNER- 
STONE FIRST MEETING OF THE BOARD GRANT OF 

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS BY THE LEGISLATURE. 

LIKE most American colleges and universities 
founded before the Civil War, St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity owes its inception to the zeal of a Christian 
denomination. Its establishment was due in the first 
instance to the desire to create a school for the education 
of candidates for the Universalist ministry. Whatever 
other purposes may have been in the minds of any of the 
immediate founders, the earliest tentative efforts did not 
contemplate an institution of general education on the 
broad and liberal plan finally adopted. 

Efforts to institute a Universalist theological school 
were made as early as 1814. At that time, however, the 
proposal encountered serious opposition. Men so justly 
honored and reverenced as "Father" Hosea Ballou in 
Massachusetts, and the Reverend Nathaniel Stacy in 
New York, were suspicious of the tendency of such institu- 
tions, which they regarded as the natural source of arbi- 
trary doctrines, oppressive creeds, and other unfounded 
"human opinions. " This prejudice appears to have been 
the chief reason for the slow progress made by this project 
in the Universalist denomination. In fact, it slumbered 
from 1 8 14 till 1827, when another abortive endeavor is 
chronicled. We next hear of it in 1835, when the Rev- 



8 SIXTY YEARSOF ST. LAWRENCE 

erend Thomas J. Sawyer obtained the passage of a resolu- 
tion on the subject. In 1836 it was again the subject of a 
resolution. In 1840 the Massachusetts Convention ap- 
pointed a committee and instructed it to nominate a 
board of trustees, and the board so nominated was organ- 
ized in January, 1841. A site was offered and a name 
proposed, — "The Walnut Hill Evangelical Seminary." 
The location offered became subsequently the site of Tufts 
College. 

"The Walnut Hill Evangelical Seminary" was not 
founded. The interest in the project seemed not sufficient 
to warrant going forward with it. In 1845 the Reverend 
Doctor Sawyer, having removed from New York City to 
Clinton, Oneida County, to take charge of the Clinton 
Liberal Institute that had been established there in 1832, 
volunteered to open a department in that school for the 
education of candidates for the Universalist ministry. 
The New York State Convention took the matter up the 
next year, and voted to support and continue Doctor 
Sawyer's school. Not much was done, however, except 
what was accomplished by the efforts of the heroic master 
of the school, who soon had a large and promising class in 
training, "two hours a day." Up to 1853, when the 
theological department of the Clinton Institute suspended* 
thirty-seven students had availed of its advantages; and 
it is of particular interest to note that one of these was 
Absalom Graves Gaines, then a young teacher in the 
Institute, who long afterward became the revered head 
of the College of Letters and Science of St. Lawrence 
University. 

In 1847 a meeting was held in New York, pursuant to 
a call, to consider the advisability of establishing a "college 
and theological school." It was voted to establish a 
college to be located "in the valley of the Hudson or the 
Mohawk, " and a committee of seven was chosen to locate 



FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY 9 

a theological school. The agents appointed to raise funds 
for the college, Messrs. Otis A. Skinner, Dolphus Skinner, 
and W. S. Balch, attacked their problem with vigor, and 
the result of their efforts was the establishment of a 
college, not "in the Hudson or the Mohawk valley/' but 
on College Hill in Massachusetts, where the "Walnut Hill 
Evangelical Seminary" was to have been located. 

In the mean time the project of a theological school 
languished, but the outcome of persistent endeavors and 
agitation was the formation of a New York Universalist 
Education Society in 1852. The Reverend Eben Francis 
for a few months, and the Reverend T. J. Goodrich for a 
longer term, were financial agents of the society. In 1854 
it was reported that conditional subscriptions to the 
amount of over twenty thousand dollars had been secured 
for the theological school, and a few months later the 
sum was reported to have swelled to twenty-six thousand 
dollars. It was the general sentiment that, as a college 
had been started in Massachusetts, the proposed theologi- 
cal school should be located in New York. 

The trustees of the New York Education Society, 
above mentioned, finally decided that the pledges reported 
warranted direcl: steps to locate the school. They accord- 
ingly appointed the Reverend W. S. Balch, Norman Van 
Nostrand, and Frederick C. Havemeyer a committee on 
location, constituting Mr. Balch "General Agent to super- 
vise the raising of funds and all preparatory measures for the 
establishment of a Theological School." In April, 1855, 
the committee on location announced in the Christian 
Ambassador that the members "were prepared to attend 
to the duties of their appointment by receiving applica- 
tions from any place thought to be a suitable location for 
such an institution." The committee also published the 
rules by which it would be governed in making a choice 
from the applicants. 



IO SIXTYYEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The Education Society held its annual meeting in 
Utica on August 29 of the same year, 1855. The com- 
mittee on location reported that it had received applica- 
tions from twelve places. Among them was Canton, St. 
Lawrence County, which offered "a site of twenty acres 
of good arable land, centrally and beautifully located on a 
gentle eminence, on which site they (the applicants) agree 
to erect a good, substantial and well finished building, 
such as may be desired, provided the cost thereof does 
not exceed the sum of eleven thousand five hundred 
dollars." The committee, which had visited the most 
promising of the places offering a site, including Canton, 
in their report described these sites and the offers made 
in connection with them. The meeting instructed the 
trustees to proceed with the location of the school, and 
they in turn instructed the committee on location to select: 
a site. In the Ambassador of January 5, 1856, it was 
announced that final arrangements had been made for 
locating the school in Canton, and that the erection of a 
brick building three stories high, and forty-five by one 
hundred feet in other dimensions, had been contracted for. 
The corner-stone of this edifice was laid on June 18, 1856, 
and the work was completed in August, 1857. At a 
meeting of the trustees held on January 22, 1857, Doctor 
Sawyer, who had more fully embodied the idea of a Uni- 
versalist theological school than any other man, was 
elected "Principal of the Theological Department of the 
University, ,, and at the same meeting the Reverend 
Ebenezer Fisher, of South Dedham, Massachusetts, was 
appointed "Professor of Theology in the Theological 
Department of the University." Doctor Sawyer did not 
accept the position offered to him, and his only official 
connection with the University continued to be that of 
president of the Board of Trustees. Doctor Fisher was 
installed as "principal" of the Theological School, April 



FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY II 

15, 1858. Doctor Sawyer and Doctor Fisher each de- 
livered an address on this occasion. 

The early settlers of Northern New York were of New 
England origin. They brought with them the New 
England idea, inherent and fixed, that after the bare 
necessities of life are adequately provided for the primary 
need is education. In this conception, which has dotted 
the whole country with school-houses, the College of 
Letters and Science finds its origin. It seems to have 
been a part of the purpose of those asking that the school 
be located in Canton, to have a college included in the 
foundation, either at once or as soon as it could be effected. 
What negotiations, or correspondence, or understanding 
the local promoters had, if any, with the Trustees of the 
Universalist Education Society, or with the Committee on 
Location, as to the inclusion of a college in a plan that, up 
to the time of selecting Canton as the site, had been 
confined to the establishment of a theological school, does 
not appear. No record of anything of the kind has been 
preserved. Mr. Balch, who had supervision of the enter- 
prise on behalf of the Trustees of the Education Society, 
said, at the time of the dedication of Fisher Hall in 1883, 
that the first knowledge he had of the project of an institu- 
tion to be constituted of two departments was when, in 
June, 1856, he came up to the corner-stone laying and 
was handed a placard announcing the laying of the corner- 
stone of "The St. Lawrence University." Here seems to 
have been a true instance of a locating committee "plan- 
ning wiser than they knew." 

It is asserted by some who have investigated the sub- 
ject that the late Levi B. Storrs, for many years Secretary 
and Treasurer of the University, was the originator of the 
idea of an academic department in association with the 
theological school. In this design he was heartily seconded 
by the late Honorable John L. Russell. The idea was 



12 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

popular in Canton and in St. Lawrence County; and it 
was under the expectation that a college as well as a 
theological school was to be established, that most of 
the amount pledged in Northern New York to secure 
the location of the institution on its present site was 
subscribed. 

On March 12, 1856, Senator Bradford introduced in 
the New York State Senate a bill granting a charter to 
"The St. Lawrence University. ,, On March 31, 1856, Mr. 
Emory W. Abbott, of the First Assembly District, moved 
to refer the bill to a select committee, with power to 
report fully. The motion was carried and the select 
committee was appointed, consisting of Messrs. Abbott, 
Squires, and Rose, the St. Lawrence County delegation. 
The committee reported favorably, and on April 2, 1856, 
the Senate bill was passed in the Assembly by a unanimous 
vote. The writer's informant says his memory goes back 
to the time that his father reported at the family board 
the action that had been taken at Albany, and predicted 
a substantial future for the University. 

The St. Lawrence University was chartered by the 
Legislature, April 3, 1856, for the purpose, as stated in 
the act of incorporation, "of establishing, maintaining, 
and conducting a college in the town of Canton, St. 
Lawrence County, for the promotion of general education, 
and to cultivate and advance literature, science, and the 
arts; and to maintain a theological school at Canton 
aforesaid." The by-laws of the corporation provide that 
"The College of Letters and Science is and shall remain an 
unsectarian foundation" . . . and that "the Theological 
School is and shall remain an institution especially in- 
tended and organized for the preparation and training of 
persons for the ministry of the Universalist Church. " 

The corporate trustees were Doctor Jacob Harsen of 
New York; the Honorable Preston King of Ogdensburg; 



FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY 13 

Sidney Lawrence and George C. Sherman of Watertown; 
the Honorable John L. Russell, Francis Seger, Martin 
Thatcher, Levi B. Storrs, Barzillai Hodskin, and Theodore 
Caldwell, Sr., of Canton; James Sterling of Sterlingville; 
F. C. Havemeyer, Thomas J. Sawyer, and William S. 
Balch of New York; Thomas Wallace and Josiah Barber 
of Auburn; Caleb Barstow and Norman Van Nostrand of 
Brooklyn; H. W. Barton and George E. Baker of Albany; 
A. C. Moore of Buffalo; L. C. Browne of Hudson; Peter 
H. Bitley of Branchport; John M. Austin of Auburn; 
and George W. Montgomery of Rochester, — twenty-five 
in all. The board was composed largely of vigorous, 
self-educated pioneers who, feeling their limitations from 
a lack of liberal education, were earnest and persistent in 
their efforts to afford to the coming generation better 
advantages than they themselves had enjoyed. They 
were unsparing of their labor and willing to undergo 
privation that St. Lawrence might grow and prosper. 
It is believed that no member of the first Board of Trustees 
is now living. 

Work on the building now known as Richardson Hall, 
the first erected of the buildings that today make up the 
material St. Lawrence, was begun in April, 1856. Land 
for the new school had been purchased during the preceding 
winter, and arrangements made for breaking ground as 
soon as spring came. College Hill was then bare of trees 
and used chiefly as pasture land. In one part only was 
there any variation in its unattractive appearance. South 
of the center of the plot were a few apple trees, directly 
behind the site on which Fisher Hall now stands. The 
college property then comprised twenty-six and six one- 
hundredths acres of land, and had been part of two 
farms, the Hill farm and the Noble farm. Land subse- 
quently purchased has given the college field its present 
regular geometrical figure. 



14 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

By June, work had progressed so far that the eighteenth 
of the month, Wednesday, was set for the corner-stone 
laying. When this day arrived the foundation walls were 
up and the joists laid for the first floor. Great prepara- 
tions were made for the event, and the village, which then 
had a population of about fifteen hundred, was full of 
strangers. "It was like Fair Day," says one who remem- 
bers the occasion, and an estimate made at the time gives 
the number present as over two thousand. Large posters 
announcing the "Laying of the Corner-stone of the St. 
Lawrence University and Theological Seminary " had 
been prominently displayed throughout the county, and 
nearly every town was represented. Prominent Universal- 
ists, clergy and laymen, were present from all parts of 
New York State and from most of the New England 
States. In connection with the presence of these strangers 
it must be remembered that the railroad had just been 
built, that it extended no farther east than Potsdam, and 
that between Canton and Watertown hardly more than 
construction trains were run. The Reverend William S. 
Balch, who came to the exercises from Ludlow, Vermont, 
found it necessary to go to Madrid on the old Northern 
Railroad, and drive ten miles to Canton. 

In preparation for the exercises planks had been laid 
across the first-floor joists to make a platform for the 
speakers and the choir. The corner-stone is in the north- 
eastern corner of the building, and this platform was 
across the northern end of the foundation walls. On the 
ground, in a semicircle, were placed rough seats, and here 
a part of the audience found accommodation. A larger 
part was standing. It is a pidlure strange to the student 
of today that the scene presents. No Fisher Hall, no 
Herring Library, no Cole Reading Room, no Carnegie 
Hall, no Gymnasium; a hillside bare of trees, without 
grading, without walks; piles of brick and lumber, heaps 



FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY 15 

of sand, mortar beds, and busy workmen; and amid these 
surroundings an earnest throng, prepared to lay the corner- 
stone of the new college of that "North Country" which 
one of its graduates has since made famous. 

On the platform was the choir. To lead the choir was 
an organ and an orchestra of three pieces. The leader of 
the orchestra was J. B. Livingston; L. B. Storrs and 
Frederick Boynton were the other members. The organist 
was Miss Ellen Storrs, daughter of L. B. Storrs. The 
choir was composed of the best singers of the churches of 
the village, and was under the leadership of Edwin Coan. 
Other members were Mrs. Coan, Sheldon Brewer, Eunice 
Brewer, Maitland Howe, Lorenzo Lawrence, Caroline 
Conkey — now Mrs. A. A. Matteson, of Hermon — Marcia 
Simmons, Harriet Baldwin, M. H. Merrick, William 
Sims, and Mrs. Sims. 

The exercises began about ten o'clock with the singing 
by the choir of a voluntary, "We praise the Lord from 
this time forth forevermore." An introductory prayer 
was made by the Reverend Day Kellogg Lee, of Ogdens- 
burg, and then the corner-stone was laid by the Reverend 
William S. Balch. Mr. Balch in his address dwelt particu- 
larly upon the need of the Universalist denomination for 
a divinity school, and the efforts to establish one which 
had resulted in the founding of St. Lawrence University. 
He also spoke of the fact that the College of Letters and 
Science was purely local in its origin, and had formed no 
part of the plan of the Universalist Education Society. 
In the corner-stone the name "Canton Theological School" 
was placed. Mr. Balch's address being finished, the tin 
box was sealed up by Mr. Frank Perkins, and the corner- 
stone was laid. 

An original ode by Mrs. Caroline M. Sawyer, wife of 
the Reverend Thomas Jefferson Sawyer, followed. An 
address was then delivered by Doctor Sawyer, afterward 



l6 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

the first president of the Board of Trustees, and an original 
ode was read by the Reverend Day Kellogg Lee. The 
concluding address was delivered by the Reverend E. H. 
Chapin, of New York. The choir sang the Hallelujah 
Chorus from the Oratorio of the Messiah, and the conclud- 
ing prayer and benediction was made by the Reverend 
H. R. Nye. The exercises were not concluded until nearly 
two in the afternoon. 

The Theological School opened, April 18, with four stu- 
dents, Benaiah Loomis Bennett, Andrew Jackson Canfield, 
Mahlon Rich Leonard, and James Minton Pullman. 

The first meeting of the Board of Trustees was held in 
Canton, November 13, 1856. Preston King presided. 
Mr. King was then an influential citizen of St. Lawrence 
County. He was afterwards United States Senator and 
later Collector of Customs for the Port of New York. 
The Reverend Thomas J. Sawyer, D.D., was elected 
president of the board; Barzillai Hodskin was made 
treasurer, and Levi B. Storrs, recorder. At this meeting, 
after discussion and explanations, the charter was accepted 
and much business transacted relating to the future of 
what it was now determined should be a " university" 
with two departments. 

In April, 1857, one year after the act that gave the 
institution its charter, the same persons who had procured 
that instrument petitioned the legislature for a grant 
toward the endowment of the St. Lawrence University. 
After some debate, in which newspapers outside as well 
as members inside the legislature took part, an act was 
passed appropriating twenty-five thousand dollars for 
"general education," on condition that an equal sum 
should be raised by subscription. This condition was 
finally complied with, and the resulting fifty thousand 
dollars became the financial foundation of the College of 
Letters and Science. 



CHAPTER II 
THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL — DAYS OF TRIAL 

EARLY HISTORY — DOCTOR EBENEZER FISHER — PROBLEMS, 
FINANCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL — INCREASING THE TEACH- 
ING FORCE — THE CIVIL WAR — PROGRESS ARRESTED — 
SUGGESTED REMOVAL TO MASSACHUSETTS — SEEKING 
ENDOWMENT — DOCTOR CONE — DOCTOR LEE. 

BESIDES the building and grounds there was little 
to suggest either a college or a seminary when 
Professor Ebenezer Fisher opened the Theological 
School, April 18, 1858. He and his four students took 
possession of the building, which was school, dormitory, 
and boarding hall. Until the spring of the following year 
they held undisputed sway in the mostly empty rooms. 
Then the Reverend John Stebbins Lee, already well known 
from his connection with denominational schools in Ver- 
mont, came and took charge of a preparatory department 
for the proposed college. This was the educational root 
out of which the College of Letters and Science grew. 
Professor Lee also became Professor Fisher's associate and 
acled as instructor of the theological students in Greek. 
In December of this first year, 1858, Professor Fisher 
wrote that he had nine students. Text-books, library, 
charts, maps, even furniture, were almost wholly wanting 
in the first months. Nothing but the deeply felt need of 
such a school and the strong personality of Professor 
Fisher held the students there during that first barren 
year. Friends of the school, however, were not idle, and 



l8 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

presently collections of books, the beginnings of a library, 
and articles of furniture began to appear. 

Probably the most authentic and vivid picture of 
things as they were at the beginning of the school, is 
contained in a letter of the Reverend M. R. Leonard, 
already mentioned as a member of the first entering class. 
Mr. Leonard was a native of the adjoining town of 
Pierrepont. His letter was written in 1880 to the late 
Reverend Doctor Emerson of Boston, who was then 
engaged on a memoir of Doctor Fisher. 

" Well do I remember the day on which Doctor Fisher 
— he was not a Doctor then, however, — was inaugurated 
President of the Canton Theological School. It was about 
the middle of April, 1858, and the weather and the roads 
were exceptionally bad, even for Northern New York. 
I remember these things distinctly, because I travelled on 
foot eight miles or more to attend the inaugurating 
exercises. . . . The first term at Canton was not very 
promising or inspiring. There was Doctor — or as we 
called him — Professor Fisher; there were four students, 
and a plain and rather inconvenient building, with neither 
library nor furniture of any kind. We literally had no 
books at our command save the text-books required for 
daily use. Before the close of the term, however, we had 
a sufficiency of books, both in number and variety, to 
answer our purposes very well. The opening of the 
second term brought several new students. They were 
merged in our class, and we all, or at least all who re- 
mained to the end of the third year, graduated together. 
Doctor Fisher's personal influence was about the only 
bond that held us at Canton during the first year." 

Two questions of serious import confronted the Theo- 
logical School almost from the hour of opening. The one 
related to finances, the other to a faculty. And the 
solution of the one waited on the solution of the other. 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 19 

Professor Fisher soon found that, with even the small- 
est number of students, the demand for departments of 
instruction was quite beyond the resources of one man; 
but the number of students increased. At that date 
there was no other Universalist theological school in 
existence. No one was surprised that students came 
faster than they could be cared for. Professor Lee, as 
has already been mentioned, took the classes in New 
Testament Greek the second year. Hebrew also was 
then considered indispensable to a well-equipped minister. 
The students who came were generally better furnished 
with religious than with educational preparation; the 
instruction which they needed was quite as much literary 
as theological. The Principal was for the first year the 
whole of the faculty, and for some years afterward he was 
more often single-handed than assisted. Professor Lee's 
preparatory department also grew, and he was over- 
whelmed with work while narrowly circumscribed as to 
helpers by the same necessity that perplexed and halted 
Professor Fisher. "I need two assistants," said Professor 
Fisher; "I must have one." 

When Professor Fisher was corresponded with to take 
the position, the twenty-six thousand dollars said to have 
been subscribed for the school was put before him as 
virtually the endowment of his chair. The salary on which 
he was engaged was modest, even for those days, — eleven 
hundred dollars. Soon after reaching Canton he learned 
that only a portion of the subscriptions had been paid in; 
not much had been actually invested; bills of one sort 
and another had come in, and the money in the treasury 
had been used to meet them without much regard to 
where it came from or for what purpose originally pledged. 
Seven years later, in 1865, when Doctor Fisher was raising 
twenty thousand dollars for the second professorship, to 
which the Reverend Orello Cone had been called, the 



20 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

writer met him at Cortland, at the Universalist State 
Convention, and became his lieutenant in getting pledges 
on the floor of the Convention. At that time he spoke 
freely of his experiences and responsibilities and per- 
plexities. Said he: "I went to Canton under contract to 
conduct a school, for the maintenance of which the trustees 
were to provide. I soon found that I must get money 
or go without it. Not only was there no provision for 
such equipment as the school needed and such assistance 
in teaching as it was expected I would require, but the 
endowment for my own chair was largely either non- 
existent or not available. I have been after money, 
much against my inclinations, continuously for over six 
years now." 

The two engrossing occupations which alternated with 
each other in the experience of this strong and noble man 
were teaching theology in the class and lecture room and 
raising endowment from the Universalist churches in the 
State and beyond. It was a remarkable piece of good 
fortune for the cause he represented that this large and 
critical labor was entrusted to such a man. Doctor 
Fisher — as he was soon permitted to publish himself and 
was so long known that it is only as Doctor Fisher that 
he is remembered — was a man of striking personality. 
A large frame crowned with a noble head, its bald top 
shining like a helmet, a face of blended benignity and 
sternness, a voice deep and musical, but capable of soft 
and tender notes, particularly in prayer; a bearing at 
once imperial and modest; master of a succinct vocabulary 
which made his conversation or discourse clear and effect- 
ive; without wide range of learning, but sure of himself 
in the fields he ventured to tread; rock-like in his princi- 
ples and crystalline in his character, a devout, sincere 
Christian, and a Universalist whose fine spiritual strain 
expressed the logic and the essence of his faith, Ebenezer 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 21 

Fisher was a man to inspire confidence and win admiration 
wherever he went. Acquaintance confirmed first impres- 
sions. As the years passed and the school grew and its. 
fame spread, the whole denomination felt the attraction 
of the great and benign personality who, during the whole 
of his service of twenty-one years, so overshadowed all 
others on the hill that in the public estimation he literally 
was what scribes unfamiliar with the organization of the 
institution often proclaimed him, "the head of the St. 
Lawrence University." 

We have lingered over the period of beginnings, 
because as the twig is bent the tree's inclined; and the 
bias and impress of quality given to the infant institution 
had much — it would scarcely be exaggeration to say 
everything — to do with its future. The stamp of the 
master mind of Doctor Fisher remains even yet on the 
school, and the winning and noble influence of his per- 
sonality has scarcely ceased down to this day to be a 
financial asset. 

In June, i860, the Board of Trustees, at the request of 
Doctor Fisher, invited the Reverend Massena Goodrich of 
Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to a second professorship, 
designated the Professorship of Biblical Languages and 
Literature. Mr. Goodrich was a man of reputation as a 
scholar and greatly esteemed as a minister. The precarious 
condition of the finances, frankly acknowledged by the 
President, made Mr. Goodrich hesitate, and at length 
decline the invitation. But after the school opened in the 
fall, the access of new students and the impossible task 
with which Professor Fisher was confronted impelled him 
to renew the appeal to Mr. Goodrich, and this time with 
success. Professor Goodrich came in October, i860. 
During his short term of service — he withdrew in 1862 — 
he was of great assistance in sharing both the cares and 
labors of the school. But the endeavor to raise twenty- 



22 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

five thousand dollars to endow this second professorship 
dragged. An efficient agent could not be found to take 
the field. The war had broken out and absorbed both 
interest and resources. 

As Professor Goodrich remarked: "Thousands of our 
countrymen knew not whether they had a country or not, 
and the school at Canton seemed to many in our denomi- 
nation a trivial matter." However, the first class was 
taken through to graduation while Professor Goodrich 
remained with the school, in June, 1861. The faculty had 
started in on the first year with a new class in 1862, when 
the accumulation of clouds in the sky of their hopes 
decided both Professor Fisher and Professor Goodrich to 
agree to the latter's return to New England. 

The year 1863 was a time of peculiar trial and anxiety. 
Doctor Fisher kept at his post, but the school was reduced 
in numbers. Seven had graduated in 1862, and the 
entrances under prospect of a reduced teaching force were 
few. Still the heroic head of the school held on and 
struggled on. 

In the last months of 1863 and the first of 1864 the 
straits of the school led to the suggestion that it be re- 
moved to Massachusetts and incorporated with Tufts 
College. This proposal was considered and debated in 
both places, but was not warmly advocated in either, 
because, in the first place, it was not certain that more 
funds would be at its disposal in Massachusetts than in 
New York, and because, in the second place, it would 
plainly be a heavy blow to the prestige of the college, 
now struggling into notice, while the draft which the 
removed school would necessarily make on the resources 
of the institution at Tufts was not contemplated with 
hospitable feeling in Massachusetts. Doctor Fisher wrote 
in December, 1864, while the idea was not yet wholly 
given up, "If the school could be properly endowed here, 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 23 

I for one would oppose its removal unless it could be 
amicably accomplished." But he regarded it as a con- 
tingency which, in case of failure to secure endowment in 
New York, would have to be considered. His position is 
expressed in another letter written about the same time: 
"This fund must be made up, or I shall feel that it is of 
no use longer to struggle to sustain a Theological School in 
Canton." 

Under this pressure the Reverend W. S. Balch was 
induced to undertake again the task of raising endow- 
ment. He went to work in New York City; thence he 
journeyed to Philadelphia, then to Baltimore, and later 
on, "up State" in New York. His particular errand was 
to complete subscriptions for twenty thousand dollars, 
necessary to secure a conditional offer of five thousand 
dollars by a personal friend of Doctor Fisher, toward a 
professorship of twenty-five thousand dollars. The friend, 
unnamed at the time, was the late Charles A. Ropes of 
Salem, Massachusetts, a former parishioner of Doctor 
Fisher. He made his offer in the dark days of 1863. As 
matter of fact, Mr. Ropes advanced to Doctor Fisher a 
good part of this sum to meet the urgent needs, not only 
before the other twenty thousand was raised, but before 
there was any good prospect that it ever would be raised. 
He was that very useful variety of the genus friend, "a 
friend in need." 

At the most discouraging hour in the canvass for 
funds, when New York and Philadelphia and Baltimore 
had been visited and only small pledges obtained, Mr. 
Balch made his way to Rochester and there, to his great 
surprise and immeasurable joy, he met a gentleman who 
had already planned large things for the nearly stranded 
institution in Canton. He literally took Mr. Balch's 
breath away by informing him, after receiving satisfactory 
answers to his inquiries, that so soon as certain details in 



24 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

his business were reached, as planned, he would give the 
St. Lawrence University fifty thousand dollars. This 
gentleman was the late John Craig of Rochester, a man 
of few words, but of solid financial and moral character, 
with whom to promise was to fulfill. As the sum promised 
by Mr. Craig much exceeded the amount Mr. Balch was 
trying to raise, and as it would not be available for a year 
or two, it was deemed advisable to go on with the work of 
completing the twenty-five thousand dollar endowment and 
use Mr. Craig's munificent gift to found a third professor- 
ship for the Theological School, and to establish a com- 
panion professorship for the college. This program was 
adopted and later carried out. 

In 1865 the Reverend Orello Cone was called to the 
chair which Professor Goodrich had vacated in 1862. 
Mr. Cone was then a young man of rising reputation as 
a scholar and some experience as a teacher. He proved 
to be a valuable acquisition. To sound and thorough 
equipment he added a literary sense, love of study, exact- 
ness of scholarship, and a mental acuteness not often 
equalled. In the chair of Biblical Languages and Litera- 
ture he began studies which he prosecuted with genuine 
scholastic ardor for the rest of his life. His first term of 
service in the school lasted for fourteen years, until he 
was called to the presidency of Buchtel College, Ohio. 
In 1899 he came back to his first love, and closed his 
career in the school in which he made his fame as a 
scholar and author and to which he was always strongly 
attached. He died in 1905. Doctor Cone achieved a 
first place among New Testament scholars and critics, 
partly by various articles of recognized merit contributed 
to the religious reviews, but particularly by his volumes, 
"Gospel Criticism and Historical Christianity/' "The 
Gospel and its Earliest Interpretations," "Paul the Man 
and the Missionary," and "Rich and Poor in the New 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 25 

Testament." These books took immediate rank among 
the very ablest and most authoritative in the departments 
to which they relate. 

In 1869 Professor J. S. Lee, returning from a year's 
sojourn abroad, where he went to recuperate from the 
exhausting labors that, with but slender support, over- 
whelmed him as the head of the incipient college, was 
made Craig Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Bibli- 
cal Archaeology in the Theological School. This position 
Dodlor Lee held thereafter until his death in 1902, making 
his term of continuous service thirty-three years in the 
Theological School, and in the University forty-two years. 
Dodlor Lee was a man of great industry, wide reading, 
large information, thoroughly devoted to the institution 
he served, loyal to the church, interested and active in 
the civic problems of his time and place, genial as an 
associate, kindly and considerate to his pupils, and an 
educator whose whole mature life had been spent in the 
class and lecture room. He with his family — three sons 
and two daughters, all of whom became graduates of St. 
Lawrence — comprised in those formative years no small 
part of the life and social impulse of the young institu- 
tion, both departments of which he labored so assidu- 
ously to establish. 

The great shock of the Civil War, with its inevitable 
dislocations, had been survived by the little theological 
bark, scarcely launched and not yet either manned or 
equipped; the initial period of anxiety as to endowment 
had been succeeded by such ingatherings as gave Doctor 
Fisher not only courage but a sense of security and com- 
fort; students had begun to apply in encouraging num- 
bers; the teaching force had been increased from one to 
three, and their chairs placed on an apparently firm foun- 
dation; the college, with which the fortunes of the Theo- 
logical School had been so closely identified, was going 



26 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

forward under new and favoring auspices; and not least 
satisfying, in view of the greatly increased expenses of 
living, Doctor Fisher's salary had been raised to fifteen 
hundred dollars in 1866, with anticipations of further 
increase later. But in 1869, the year of Doctor Lee's 
entrance into the theological faculty, a new crisis arose. 

A department in divinity had been instituted at Tufts 
College, and Doctor Thomas J. Sawyer had been elected 
dean. In looking about for associates to aid him in the new 
faculty, covetous eyes were cast on Ebenezer Fisher, and 
he was asked to come into the new school. Doctor Fisher 
was now well satisfied with his own school and his inde- 
pendent position as its head. His affection for it, too, 
had grown strong by association, and by the paternal 
anxieties he had borne on its behalf. But his compensa- 
tion, very inadequate from the start, had become posi- 
tively scant through the growing demands of the position 
and increased cost of living. He thought the opportunity 
should be availed of to increase the endowment of his 
chair, so that it might be ample for any incumbent. In 
the counsels which this new situation gave rise to, the 
Reverend D. C. Tomlinson, then pastor of the church in 
Watertown, was summoned by a volunteer committee of 
graduates, of whom the Reverend J. M. Pullman was 
chief, and told that here was his chance to save Doctor 
Fisher to Canton and put his chair on an adequate foun- 
dation. He was in full sympathy with the object, and 
soon he was in the field as a canvasser, with the purpose 
of adding ten thousand dollars to the endowment of the 
first professorship. The canvass was almost immediately 
successful, made so by the gift of five thousand dollars 
by George A. Dockstader of New York, supplemented by 
gifts from B. F. Romaine, F. C. Havemeyer, P. T. Bar- 
num, A. C. Moore, and Solomon Drullard. This is the 
explanation of this chair bearing the title of the Dock- 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL ZJ 

stader Professorship. The trustees raised the salary of 
the President that very year to twenty-four hundred 
dollars, and in 1871 to twenty-five hundred dollars. 

So Doctor Fisher remained in Canton, the honored 
and beloved President of the Theological School, till 
summoned by death, ten years later, on February 21, 
1879. 



CHAPTER III 
THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL — LATER GROWTH 

NEW PROBLEMS — ACCESSION OF I. M. ATWOOD TO THE 
PRESIDENCY — BUILDING OF FISHER HALL — INCREASE 
OF FUNDS — DOCTOR CONE'S RETIREMENT — CALL OF 

DOCTOR FORBES CRISIS IN THE COLLEGE PROFESSOR 

FISHER — RETIREMENT OF PRESIDENT ATWOOD — PRESI- 
DENT ALMON GUNNISON — PROFESSORS J. M. ATWOOD, 
G. E. HUNTLEY, AND H. P. MORRELL CALLED. 

PUBLIC sentiment in the denomination pointed with 
rather unusual unanimity to one man to be Doc- 
tor Fisher's successor in the presidency of the 
Theological School. That man was the Reverend I. M. 
Atwood, pastor of the Third Universalist Church of Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, and at the time editorial contrib- 
utor to the Christian Leader, Boston, of which paper he 
had been editor from 1867 to 1872. Mr. Atwood was 
surprised to be thought of for the place, as he had won 
whatever prominence he had in the denomination as 
pastor and editor. At first he refused to consider the offer. 
But so many of his brethren joined in the opinion that 
he was an instance of natural selection for the place that 
he was persuaded to think about it. The decisive influ- 
ence, however, was brought to bear by three of the older 
alumni of the school, his personal friends also, — the 
Reverend A. B. Hervey, the Reverend M. R. Leonard, 
and the Reverend Almon Gunnison. They put the mat- 
ter before him in the light of a duty to the Universalist 
Church and to the interests of its ministry. He was 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 29 

elected at a meeting of the Board of Trustees called for 
the purpose in April, 1879, was inaugurated in June of 
that year, and took his place as head of the school in 
September, at the opening of the term. 

The Theological School was still domiciled, along with 
the College of Letters and Science, in the building first 
erected. The only other building on the grounds was the 
Herring Library. The theological students, for the most 
part, occupied rooms, as had been the custom from the 
beginning, in the upper story of this building, and boarded 
with the steward. At the south end was the chapel 
of the college; at the north end the chapel of the 
Theological School, which was also the President's class 
room. The new President of the Theological School 
found the two literally dwelling together under the same 
roof and in happy accord. For a number of years, the 
Reverend A. G. Gaines, D.D., had been the President 
of the College of Letters and Science. Doctor Atwood — 
he received the degree of S.T.D. from Tufts College in 
June of this year — was already on familiar terms with 
Doctor Gaines, whom he had invited to write one of the 
essays in "The Latest Word of Universalism," published 
in 1878. Pleasant relations were immediately established 
between the heads of the two coordinate departments of 
the University, and ever after maintained. 

It was apparent that one or the other of the depart- 
ments should swarm and occupy a new hive. Opportunely 
the alumni of the Theological School had already initiated 
the movement for a memorial to Doctor Fisher, and a 
good beginning had been made among themselves and 
other friends of the school in subscriptions for that ob- 
ject. It was decided that the memorial should take the 
form of a building for the use of the Theological School, 
thus releasing the old hall to the college and providing 
the better accommodations so long desired. The new 



30 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

President of the Theological School had for his first ad- 
ministrative function, outside the daily routine of the 
class-room, the erection of this building and the maturing 
of plans, making of contracts, and raising of funds, in- 
volved in the enterprise. Having been the leader in the 
erection of several church edifices and a member of a 
school board charged with the building of three large 
school-houses, he was not unfamiliar with the details of 
his task. The work proceeded with considerable delib- 
eration, owing to the fact that the subscriptions for the 
memorial were mostly in small sums, made in many 
places, and the collections correspondingly slow. The 
corner-stone of the new building, named and known as 
Fisher Hall, was laid in August, 1881, and the dedication 
took place commencement week, 1883. Special interest 
was imparted to the service of dedication from the cir- 
cumstance that two of the locating committee who se- 
lected Canton as the place for the Theological School in 
1856, F. C. Havemeyer of New York City, and the Rev- 
erend Doctor William S. Balch of Elgin, Illinois, were 
present. Doctor Balch gave some interesting reminis- 
cences of his connection with the labors and conferences 
that preceded the foundation of the University. 

Although the fact will appear in its place in the his- 
tory of the College of Letters and Science, it concerns 
the history of the Theological School to record that two 
of the presidents of the college, the Reverend Doctor A. 
B. Hervey, T. S. '6i, and the Reverend Doctor J. C. Lee, 
T. S. '8o, were chosen from its graduates; while the first 
man selected to be President of the University, the Rev- 
erend Doctor Almon Gunnison, was a member of the 
class of '68 of the Theological School. 

The erection of Fisher Hall and its dedication with- 
out debt was a much more strenuous performance than 
the cost of the edifice and furnishings would indicate. 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 31 

Although it was the most costly of the buildings erected 
up to this time, it was almost a marvel of cheapness, 
having been completed within a total of seventeen thou- 
sand dollars. This is the more noteworthy when the solid 
character of the structure and the thoroughness of work- 
manship in every part are considered, — facts evidenced 
by the absence of any signs of age on the building after 
thirty-four years of constant and by no means delicate use. 

Professor Cone was called to the presidency of Buchtel 
College the next year after Doctor Atwood came to Can- 
ton. The question of the selection of a successor to a 
teacher and scholar of such distinction was one of critical 
interest to a growing constituency. It was settled, with- 
out haste and without delay, by the choice of the Rev- 
erend Henry Prentiss Forbes, of Danvers, Massachusetts. 
Professor Forbes came to Canton in November, 1880, and 
soon established himself in the confidence of his associates 
and of the students as a man of rare quality and thorough 
scholarship. His identification with the school for a period 
approaching thirty-four years sustained the good opinion 
formed of him at first, and has provided a field for the 
exercise and development of his talents as teacher, scholar, 
and author. His promotion to be dean of the school when 
the new style of administration was adopted, on Doctor 
Gunnison's accession in 1900, was a foregone conclusion. 
The appearance in 1907 of "The Johannine Literature 
and the Acts of the Apostles," being Volume IV in the 
series of International Handbooks of the New Testament, 
furnished the discriminating public with the evidence, 
long in the possession of his intimate acquaintances, that 
Doctor Forbes had few equals and no superiors in the 
range and accuracy of his knowledge of this portion of 
the New Testament literature. 

At a meeting of the Board of Trustees in June, 1880, 
Doctor Atwood was elected a trustee and placed on the 



32 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Executive Committee, and he was confirmed by vote of 
the New York Universalist Convention in September 
following. This position brought him into intimate knowl- 
edge of the financial condition of both departments, and 
put upon him a steadily increasing responsibility in look- 
ing after the temporalities of both. He found that the 
productive funds of the Theological School amounted to a 
little over seventy thousand dollars; those of the college 
were not more than sixty thousand dollars. Both depart- 
ments were running in debt, the college rapidly. The 
latter had the resource of a small tuition fee in addition 
to income from its invested funds. The former was en- 
tirely dependent on interest income. In the first nine 
years of his incumbency as President of the Theological 
School and member of the Executive Committee, Doctor 
Atwood felt prohibited, practically, from making any 
public effort to increase the endowment of his department, 
because the financial condition of the college was so much 
more critical. Direct efforts, in which he uniformly bore 
a prominent share, were all confined to soliciting funds for 
the college. Nevertheless, the endowment of the Theo- 
logical School grew. The bequest of Miss Sarah A. Gage, 
of Hudson, amounting to thirty-seven thousand four 
hundred and fifty-six dollars, came in during the year 
1882-83; ana * the Lester Taylor legacy of four thousand 
dollars was added to the funds in 1884. 

In 1886 a crisis came in the affairs of the College of 
Letters. The productive funds of this department were 
down to fifty thousand dollars. The representation of 
the Board of Trustees and of the local officers, made 
through the annual reports, through the public press, and 
through various forms of special appeal, had resulted in 
no substantial relief. The hesitancy to come to the rescue 
of the imperilled institution was ominous. A very signif- 
icant straw was the circumstance that no quorum ap- 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 33 

peared at the regular annual meeting of the Board of 
Trustees in June. A heavy cloud overhung the Univer- 
sity, and the question of closing the doors of the college 
was apparently imminent. 

In this dark hour, forsaken apparently by their nat- 
ural allies outside, the friends of the institution in Canton, 
embracing first and foremost the officers and professors 
and students, determined to try self-help. It belongs to 
other portions of this history to go into the details of this 
heroic rally for rescue. It is mentioned here to make 
record of the fact that the president and professors, and 
even the students of the Theological School, arrayed them- 
selves with those of the college and were among the largest 
contributors to its salvation. Doctor Atwood's wide 
acquaintance was made particular use of, and by pen and 
in pulpit and on platform he carried the canvass even 
beyond the borders of the state. The immediate rescue 
endeavor was for an addition of fifty thousand dollars to 
the endowment of the college. After the canvass had 
brought in conditional pledges to the amount of nearly 
forty thousand dollars, Doctor Atwood went out through 
the state in November and raised the remainder, bringing 
the total before the end of the canvass to nearly fifty-two 
thousand dollars; and the College of Letters was saved. 

As before stated, the Theological School opened in 
April, 1858, with four students. The academic year was 
arranged to begin in September; and in that month of 
the first year seven more students were enrolled. In 1859 
ten students entered. All of these did not remain, how- 
ever. In '6o nine names were added to the roll, and in 
'6 1 four students, including the first woman, Miss Olym- 
pia Brown. The school has been open to women and 
men on the same terms from the start. In '62 three new 
names appear; in '63, three. Here the full effect of the 
Civil War on attendance is manifest, the school being 



34 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

reduced to one attendant. In '64 but one entry was 
made. In '65 ten came; in '66 thirteen, of whom but 
nine entered the ministry. In '67 fourteen entered, of 
whom twelve graduated. In '68 there were eleven; in 
'69, eleven; in '70, thirteen; in '71, five; in '72, nine; 
in '73, eight; in '74, eleven; in '75, ten; in 'j6, eleven. 
The opening of the school in Tufts, and, a little later, of 
the Ryder School in Lombard, began to affect attendance 
at Canton. In '77 there were but four entries; in '78, 
seven; in '79, five; in '80, six; in '8i, five; in '82, four; 
in '83, seven; in '84, seven; in '85, five; in '86, eight; 
in '87, six; in '88, nine; in '89, seven; in '90, fifteen; in 
'91, nineteen, — the largest number in any year in the 
history of the school. Since then an average of seven or 
eight has been maintained, rising occasionally to ten or 
eleven, and falling once to three. 

In all, up to 191 5, four hundred and forty-five students 
have been enrolled — including those of the year 191 5. 
Of these two hundred and ninety-five have been gradu- 
ated, and three hundred and sixty have been ordained 
and entered the work of the Universalist ministry. Eight- 
een of these have transferred themselves to other denom- 
inations, and sixty-five have turned to other pursuits. 
The death-roll numbers sixty-four. 

The course of instruction in the Theological School 
has maintained steadiness of aim with great freedom in 
the pursuit. Taking its students in all stages of prepara- 
tion, but uniformly with very inadequate preparation, it 
has fallen to the lot of the faculty to do much rudimen- 
tary work at the same time that the most advanced 
studies have claimed a large share of their attention. 
Such conditions are concededly unfavorable to the pro- 
duction of the most desirable results. A desideratum in 
this school always has been a higher standard of admis- 
sion. The two presidents, Dean Forbes and the present 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 35 

dean, all the professors, have many times felt so handi- 
capped and unsatisfied with the conditions as to be on 
the point of revolt. They have suppressed their griev- 
ances and labored on, supported by these three consid- 
erations: First, the impracticability, if not impossibility, 
of making a radical change. Second, the excellent use 
which most of the meagerly prepared students have made 
of their opportunities, this often giving them high stand- 
ing and even precedence among the best equipped in their 
profession. Third, the steady progress that seems to be 
making toward a sentiment, in and out of the school, 
that will require a preparation for entrance on the study 
of divinity equal to that demanded for other post-gradu- 
ate work. 

It speaks much — more than the writer feels at liberty 
to claim — for the ability and versatility of the teaching 
force in the school, that it has been able to adapt its 
instruction to the requirements of its students and still 
carry them along to a conclusion so nearly equal to that 
reached in institutions able to demand a higher average 
of preparation. 

One of the improvements early introduced by Presi- 
dent Atwood was a course of instruction in English, dur- 
ing the Junior year, for which he felt that the need was 
imperative. Another of his innovations was detailed 
instruction and drill in the art of expression. But per- 
haps his most valuable contribution to the curriculum of 
the Theological School was the course of Monday Lectures 
which he established in the first year of his presidency, 
and maintained, with only the interruption of an occa- 
sional Monday's absence, down to the beginning of the 
twentieth year of his term of service. That year he was 
granted leave of absence with the privilege of substituting 
an instructor for his classes. In all the other years it was 
his practice on Monday afternoons to meet the two upper 



36 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

classes and lecture to them on some topic, not included 
in the regular course of theological instruction, but which 
his experience and study of the subject had shown him to 
be of vital concern to the business of a Christian minis- 
ter. Of course, most of these lectures were revised and 
repeated to following classes. But some idea of their 
scope may be obtained from the fact that he has the out- 
lines of over sixty different lectures given to students in 
these courses. They ranged from "Personal Expenses," 
"Manners," "Speech," "Reading," to "Parish Adminis- 
tration," "Our Denomination and Other Denominations," 
"Why some Ministers Fail," "The Service," and "Spirit- 
ual Culture." Besides the important subjects thus pressed 
home on the attention of the students, there was the op- 
portunity, often golden in its timeliness and value, to give 
heart to heart talks to young men and women needing, 
perhaps, more than even knowledge, the guiding touch of 
a hand warmed by genuine personal interest in their 
welfare. 

The positions of prominence in the denomination in 
which so many of the graduates of the Theological School 
are found has been so often remarked that some mention 
of the fact seems warranted in this history. The presi- 
dents of three of the four colleges under Universalist 
auspices have been from this school. The superintendent 
of the Mission in Japan and the general superintendent 
of the whole Church are from the same quarry. The most 
prominent pulpit in Boston, and in Chicago; those of the 
two leading churches in Brooklyn, and of the two in 
Philadelphia; the pulpits of influential churches in cities 
like Utica, Syracuse, Buffalo, Denver, and of such strong 
churches as those in Calais, Augusta, and Bath, Maine; 
of Providence and Woonsocket, Rhode Island; of Fitch- 
burg, Maiden, Brookline, Somerville, Everett, Plymouth, 
Massachusetts, — are all occupied by graduates of the 



THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL 37 

Canton School. A position of as much importance and 
influence as any of these is that of the Superintendent of 
the Massachusetts Churches, also filled for many years 
by a former student of the Canton School. 

The desire for a new and supplementary element in 
the teaching force of the school, long unsatisfied because 
the financial resources did not permit of such an exten- 
sion, began to have promise of fulfillment when, in 1888, 
the death of Doctor William Henry Ryder of Chicago, 
for many years one of Doctor Atwood's personal friends, 
disclosed the fact that he had made the school his beneficiary 
in the sum of over thirty thousand dollars. In 1891 the 
President asked the Board of Trustees to establish the 
chair of Pastoral Theology and Sociology, and authorize 
him to obtain a professor for the new department. The 
request was granted, and in September of that year the 
Reverend Lewis Beals Fisher of Bridgeport, Connecticut, 
of the class of '8i, came to Canton to occupy the new 
chair. Professor Fisher's comparatively recent connection 
with the school as student, his marked success in his 
ministry of ten years, his broad human sympathies, his 
deep religious nature and convictions, his fertile brain, 
and his abounding vitality, made him an accession to the 
school as welcome to the students as to his associates on 
the faculty. Professor Fisher occupied the chair of Pas- 
toral Theology and Sociology for thirteen years, until 
called to the presidency of Lombard College, Galesburg, 
Illinois, in 1904. 

On the retirement of Doctor Atwood from the presi- 
dency of the school in 1899 to take the office of General 
Superintendent of the Universalist Church, the trustees 
deemed that the time had come to elect one head of the 
University, and the Reverend Almon Gunnison, D.D., of 
Worcester, Massachusetts, of the class of '68 of the Theo- 
logical School, was made President of St. Lawrence Uni- 



38 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

versity. This change called for a dean of the Theological 
School in place of president of a coordinate department, 
as heretofore; and Henry P. Forbes, D.D., was appointed 
to that office, which he held till his decease in 191 3. 
Doctor Lee's death in 1902, Doctor Cone's death in 1905, 
and the retirement of Professor L. B. Fisher to the presi- 
dency of Lombard College, required a reconstruction of 
the theological faculty, and the introduction of new mate- 
rial. Doctor I. M. Atwood is now the only representative 
of the "Old Guard." 

In 1905 the Reverend John Murray Atwood, of Port- 
land, Maine, a graduate of the college in the class of '89, 
and of the Theological School in '92, post-graduate '93, 
was called to the Richardson Professorship of Sociology 
and Ethics; and in 1905 the Reverend George Ezra 
Huntley, of Oneonta, New York, of the class of '94 of the 
Theological School, was called to the Ryder Professorship 
of Homiletics and Pastoral Care. After the death of 
Doctor Forbes in 191 3, Doctor J. M. Atwood having 
become Dean and Craig Professor of Biblical Languages 
and Literature, the Reverend Herbert Philbrook Morrell, 
of the class of '91, for many years pastor of Grace Uni- 
versalist Church in Buffalo, was called to the Richardson 
Professorship of Sociology and Ethics. These young men 
of differing talents and equipments, but of one spirit of 
devotion to their school and their church, alive to the new 
problems, and instinct with the prophetic impulse begotten 
of the modern outlook on human society, have been giving 
the school reputation as a nursing place of the ideas and 
policies by which the life of the Christian Church, in all 
its departments, is to be renewed, and its hold on the 
advancing intelligence of the world made secure. 



CHAPTER IV 

COLLEGE OF LETTERS AND SCIENCE — THE 

SOWERS * 

PREPARATORY SCHOOL OPENED BY JOHN STEBBINS LEE 

CREATING EDUCATIONAL IDEALS PROFESSOR J. W. 

CLAPP PECUNIARY STRUGGLES THE CIVIL WAR 

PROFESSOR NEHEMIAH WHITE PROFESSOR MOSES 

MARSTON — RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY STUDENTS. 

ON April 13, 1858, as the records of the corpora- 
tion show, it was voted that the "Reverend J. S. 
Lee, A.M., of Woodstock, Vermont, be appointed 
Professor of Ancient Languages of St. Lawrence Univer- 
sity," but it was not until a year later, April 12, 1859, 
that Professor Lee began his duties as principal of the 
school that he came to establish. In the Theological 
School, which had opened the year previous, there were 
then a dozen students; three other students were present on 
the day when Professor Lee began the instruction of which 
the final outgrowth was the College of Letters and Science. 

Some personal reminiscences of Professor Lee, published 
in The Laurentian of November, 1890, give an account of 
these incunabula by one who was acquainted with them 
at first hand. 

"A few days before, I had left Woodstock, Vermont, 
where I had been teaching and preaching for seven years 
in an academy, and had come to Canton, at the request 
of the trustees, to teach Greek in the Theological Depart- 

1 A poem bearing this title, written by Irving Bacheller, '82, for the Fiftieth Anni- 
versary of the founding of the University, is reprinted at the end of this chapter. 



40 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ment and receive under my instruction such students as 
were disposed to enter the Preparatory Department with 
a view, eventually, to entering the regular college course. 
Well, the fall term opened in September, 1859, with 
some sixty-five students, all academical or preparatory, 
none fitted to enter college, though several were prepar- 
ing to enter either the classical or scientific department. 
Indeed, I found it necessary to create and gradually foster, 
de novo, the classical spirit, as scarcely any existed even 
in the professions of law, medicine, and the ministry, in 
this part of the State. The professions were then chiefly 
filled with men who had obtained only an academic edu- 
cation and had studied only the merest rudiments of 
Greek and Latin, and many of them not even so much as 
that; it was not considered necessary to study these lan- 
guages in order to be successful in a profession. So the 
work must be commenced at the beginning, and a love 
for the grand old classic literature developed, before we 
could have any kind of college, for an institution of this 
grade could not be established without students fitted to 
pursue the course of study required in it. And this was 
necessarily a slow and toilsome process. With the aid of 
two or three assistants, I completed the first year, very 
creditably, it was thought, to July, i860. 

"When the fall term commenced, Professor J. W. 
Clapp, A.M., an honorary graduate of Amherst and a 
professional civil engineer, was engaged by the trustees to 
take charge of the mathematics and natural science, while 
I still had charge of the languages. Professor Clapp re- 
mained with us five years, to the summer of 1865, when 
he resigned and went to Chicago to enter upon more 
remunerative employment. He did efficient work in the 
college, and we were all sorry to part with him. Inade- 
quacy of salary and close confinement, endangering his 
health, compelled him to leave. 



LETTERS AND SCIENCE 41 

"At the beginning of the next college year, September, 
1 861, the Reverend Massena Goodrich, of Pawtucket, 
R.I., was elected Professor of Biblical Languages in the 
Theological School; and this gave me more time for the 
college proper, as I had up to this time taught the classes 
in elementary Greek and the Greek Testament in the The- 
ological School. Doctor Fisher and Professor Goodrich 
rendered us timely aid in a number of studies which were 
pursued in common by students of both departments, — 
mental and moral philosophy, rhetoric, Butler's Analogy, 
natural theology, and elementary Greek. Indeed, we 
could hardly have succeeded at all without their aid. As 
it was, we two professors, Clapp in mathematics and 
natural sciences, and I in the languages, were obliged 
each to conduct eight or ten, sometimes twelve, recitations a 
day, and to work day and night to keep the college going. 
We were 'painfully conscious of the imperfection of our 
work/ as a reporter of our examinations once expressed it. 
"In addition to my regular college duties, I resumed 
the teaching of Greek in the Theological School in 1863, 
after the resignation of Professor Goodrich, who remained 
only two years; and this I continued two years longer, 
until Professor Orello Cone was elected to succeed Pro- 
fessor Goodrich, in 1865. During all this period we were 
working up a choice group of students in the classics, and 
endeavoring to cultivate a love of classic literature. And 
our efforts in this direction were not in vain. The scien- 
tific spirit, also, was cherished and intensified. 

"At first all the students were in the preparatory 
departments; but a large number, during the first five 
years, enjoyed the benefits of this elementary training. 
As soon as they were fitted to enter upon the full college 
course, those who remained in the institution entered 
upon this course. But the Civil War, then at its height, 
distracted all minds and came near breaking up the in- 



42 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

stitution altogether. The finances became depleted, 
many students dropped out, some entering their country's 
service, and those that remained became discouraged and 
disturbed; hence the work dragged along at a slow rate. 

"The financial problem seemed the most difficult to 
solve. No money could be raised during the war; the 
portion of the funds available for college purposes was 
a mere pittance, and the income from tuition did little 
toward paying the expenses. The Theological School 
also was in desperate circumstances, and the necessity of 
doing something to sustain that department interfered 
disastrously with the work of raising funds for the college 
proper. 

"The condition soon became critical. At a meeting 
of the Board of Trustees, after full discussion, it was 
voted to suspend the College Department until the funds 
should accumulate sufficiently to enable the institution to 
go on with more vigor. Had this decision permanently 
prevailed, it would undoubtedly have proved a death- 
blow to the college. People could not be expected to pay 
money to support a suspended institution, and it would 
have required many years for the funds to accumulate so 
as to place it upon a permanent financial basis. A whole 
generation, at least, would have been deprived of its 
privileges, even if it were eventually resuscitated. 

"The trustees adjourned and went to dinner. Most of 
them were stopping at private houses. They partook of 
such a delicious feast as the Canton ladies are noted for 
providing. The effecl: was magical. The trustees went 
back to their deliberations in a more hopeful mood and 
reconsidered the vote of suspension. 

"The professors continued to do double, almost treble 
work, and endeavored to support themselves and their 
families on a grievously meager allowance. The trustees 
adopted the plan of voting salaries to the professors, not 



LETTERS AND SCIENCE 43 

in proportion to the amount of labor which each per- 
formed but the amount required to support his family. 
This plan was generous, prudent, and necessary, as it 
served to keep all of us, with our families, from the jaws 
of starvation. 

"At my request the trustees voted, July 16, 1866, to 
abolish the preparatory department. We had a good 
Union School with an extensive course of study in the 
village; and so long as we continued to receive academical 
pupils into the college, to remain in most cases for a term 
or two only, this class would constitute the majority of 
our students and thus, in a great measure, defeat the 
special object for which the college was established. The 
time which the professors were obliged to devote to these 
was so much taken from the regular college students, 
and with our scanty means we could do nothing like 
justice to the latter; and as the war drew to its close, 
the number of college students began to increase. 

"The first student who received a degree was Hiram 
Henry Ryel. The degree was conferred in November, 

1864, but as I told him at the time, with the understand- 
ing that we should place him in our catalogue as a mem- 
ber of the class of 1865. In April, 1865, Delos McCurdy 
received his degree, the second which was conferred by 
the trustees. 

"After the resignation of Professor Clapp, Nehemiah 
White, A.M., a former student of mine in Vermont, was 
elected to succeed him. At the same time, September, 

1865, the Reverend Orello Cone, A.M., was called to fill 
the chair of Biblical Languages, as the successor of Pro- 
fessor Goodrich, in the Theological School. He also ren- 
dered us important service by receiving college students 
in some of his classes. Professor White was a thorough 
scholar and a faithful teacher. After resigning during 
the presidency of the Reverend Doctor Richmond Fisk 



44 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

in 1871, he was appointed Professor of Latin and Greek 
in Buchtel College, and later he was called to the presi- 
dency of Lombard College. 

"With only two professors whose whole time was de- 
voted to the college, Professor White and myself, we 
plodded on for three years more, and graduated in all 
four classes. It was a toilsome though pleasant task, and 
we lived through it. My colleague was sometimes ill, 
and for several weeks in succession unable to perform his 
duties. I then obtained such a substitute as I was able 
for the time being. My health was generally good, as I 
had inherited a vigorous constitution. I was never en- 
tirely incapacitated, but I felt for several years that I 
was working beyond my strength and wearing my life 
out. I looked around for some relief so that I might 
not be obliged to give up mental work entirely. Very 
soon an expedient presented itself. For many years, even 
in my boyhood days, I had wanted to set my eyes on 
the Holy Land and stand within the walls of Jerusalem. 
In a spirit of desperation, I asked and obtained leave 
of absence for nine months from July 1, 1868. Another 
student of mine, the Reverend Moses Marston, A.M., also 
a graduate of Middlebury College, and like Professor 
White a thorough linguist and a conscientious worker, 
was elected Professor of Ancient Languages, and I was 
retained as nominal professor with my salary continued 
while I was absent. 

"I presided at the commencement exercises of July 1, 
1868. With this last public act of my official position, I 
felt that I never wanted again to enter the recitation 
room or hear another class in any branch of learning. 
But the sea-breezes had an exhilarating effect upon me. 
I travelled on to where the sound of school-bells was 
heard no more, and the daily tread of students going to 
and fro no longer sounded in my unwilling ears. 



LETTERS AND SCIENCE 45 

"After eight months spent in Europe, Egypt, and 
Palestine, I returned a new man, ready for work again. 
While I was absent I received notice of my appointment 
to the chair of Ecclesiastical History and Biblical Ar- 
chaeology in the Theological School, and in April, 1869, I 
entered upon the duties of this position. 

"It may be well for the present students and friends 
of the college to realize something of the struggle and 
privations attendant upon the early history of this now 
comparatively flourishing institution. If we two had not 
labored and persevered as we did, but had given up in 
despair when the burden seemed too great for mortals 
to bear, I fear the whole would have gone down to ruin. 
It was this thought that stimulated us to keep on work- 
ing. My confidence was in God, who would not desert 
us. I firmly believed that my labor was not in vain in 
the Lord." 

In connection with these recollections from the pen of 
Doctor J. S. Lee, it is of interest to read the follow- 
ing words of appreciation of the professors by one who 
was a student at the time referred to in the foregoing 
paragraphs. 

"The work of eight or ten men was on their shoulders. 
I think they each heard a dozen classes each day. In 
addition, Professor Lee especially always took a most 
active interest in public affairs, in the concerns and wel- 
fare of his church, and in the cause of temperance. No 
worthy cause ever appealed to him for encouragement 
and support that was not readily and ably given. I re- 
member that in the spring of 1861, at the outbreak of the 
Civil War, before I came under his instruction, and dur- 
ing all those four years when the nation's life was at 
stake, Professor Lee's well-spoken words were heard all 
over Northern New York, and no one man did more in 



46 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

St. Lawrence county to aid and encourage that cause 
than he. No temperance meeting in Canton was held 
that his earnest words for that cause were not called for 
and given. The conventions and meetings of his denom- 
ination, churches without a minister, funerals at Ham- 
mond or Morristown or Stockholm, all called for his 
services and got them. With all this, he was always at his 
post of duty in the college, and no days were there lost; 
no recitations were passed on his account, and even the 
weekly debating society of the students was generally 
attended and participated in by him. It was discour- 
aging work, but he never complained or showed signs of 
discouragement. So he kept the work going until more 
prosperous days came to the college; and I desire to 
say that my recollection of Professor Lee's unremit- 
ting and devoted work in the University during its 
first years, done under peculiar discouragements and 
difficulties, is one of the reminiscences that I most 
warmly cherish. 

"Of course, in those early days, the atmosphere, so 
to speak, in the college was not what it is now. I imagine 
that those now in and about the college, who were not 
there in those early days, can scarcely appreciate how 
different the tone then was. There was not that appre- 
ciation of culture, of the meaning and value of college 
education, that now prevails. Few of the students then 
in attendance had any idea of going through college. 
They came for a term or two to finish up their educa- 
tion; and they came off the farm or from the common 
school. And while, generally, they commenced the study 
of Latin, few ever got far with it. I remember that upon 
entering St. Lawrence, I began Latin and pursued it for 
one year with a lad from an adjoining town, who, at the 
end of a year's study, parsed a verb as 'a noun of the first 
declension and declined like bonus. 9 




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LETTERS AND SCIENCE 47 

"Even before I left Canton a different environment 
had been produced. Today the students come there to 
go through the curriculum. In the community, and 
throughout the county, St. Lawrence University has pro- 
duced a tone of culture, and an appreciation of collegiate 
education and of honest, solid, mental training, that were 
not known there in earlier days. 

"But the work of the professors of St. Lawrence, and 
of those students who aspired and finally attained to 
graduation, was from the beginning thorough and of a 
high order. To most, if not all, of these students, the 
attainment of a collegiate education was a matter of 
great sacrifice and difficulty; and it was appreciated ac- 
cordingly. The student always found in the professor an 
associate and leader, toiling in the same workshop and the 
same work with him. While I was a student of meta- 
physics and logic under Professor Marston, I sometimes 
spent hours, after classes, discussing with him, as I would 
with a fellow student, questions of philosophy or dialectics; 
and every student was thus encouraged to work with 
him. 

Another early student writes: "The estimate of the 
writer, who knew Professor Clapp as a teacher for only 
about a year, is that he was a bright, keen, competent 
instructor, a mathematician of high order, and a man 
with excellent executive ability. His students were active, 
alert, and interested, and he was very successful in his 
efforts to draw them out and encourage them. 

"Professor White," the same writer goes on to say, 
"was an earnest, capable instructor, just and fair in all 
his relations with his students. He detested sham and 
pretense, and insisted upon persistent, plodding work. 
The writer distinctly remembers a little personal instruc- 
tion given by him on one occasion which left as distinct 
an impression and has been as productive of good as any 



48 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

proportionate amount of training in the whole course. 
The occasion was the correction of an original oration, 
built up with much care, with complicated sentences, 
clothed in a profusion of adjectives, — which seemed to 
its author a fairly fine composition. The professor read 
a sentence and said quietly, 'What do you mean 
by that?' Upon receiving the answer he put his 
pencil through the whole passage, with the comment, 
'Say so, then/ It was short, decisive, and more con- 
vincing than a whole lecture on the beauty of simplicity 
of style." 

Still another early student, who was subsequently 
graduated from another college, says: "Professor Clapp 
was a remarkable mathematician. His mental action was 
deliberate, precise, and accurate. I studied mathematics 
later under other professors, but none of them, it seems to 
me, was the equal of Professor Clapp. Professor White 
was a scholar. I remember his lectures on mental science. 
He was slow, careful, ponderous in his methods of thought, 
but a profound thinker. 

"The Civil War was going on while I was at St. Law- 
rence, and St. Lawrence County was sending many young 
men to the front. The college lost students whose pa- 
triotism carried them into the army. There were sad 
funerals of boys whose bodies were brought back from the 
battle-fields, and I recall services held in the churches 
upon the death of soldiers killed in the field and not 
brought back for burial. These were years of intense feel- 
ing and patriotic devotion. I remember a great political 
meeting in the park in front of the Presbyterian Church, 
addressed by Lyman Tremain of Albany, an orator of 
great power. I also attended meetings in Canton ad- 
dressed by Horace Greeley and Horatio Seymour, the 
former eloquently arguing the cause of the Republican 
party and the latter opposing the administration. 



LETTERS AND SCIENCE 49 

"Professor Lee was intensely interested in the success 
of the Union cause. I can see him now coming down 
from the post-office with Horace Greeley's New York 
Tribune in his hand, reading the war news and stopping 
to discuss the situation with those he met on the street, 
and to denounce those who favored the cause of the South. 
There were some — yes, quite a number — of that class in 
Canton. These incurred his wrath and his fierce denuncia- 
tion. He had good intellectual ability, earnestness, sincer- 
ity, honesty; indeed, as it seems to me, all the excellencies 
and virtues which are required to round out and build up 
a character of great usefulness in society. Professor Lee 
was not a great scholar. His education was solid, but his 
activities were too broad to permit him to perfect himself 
in particular departments of learning." 

Mention has been made of the two graduates of the 
class of 1865. Degrees were subsequently conferred 
nunc pro tunc upon Pardon Clarence Williams and Leffert 
Lefferts Buck, as of the class of 1863. The former became 
a successful lawyer and finally a justice of the Appellate 
Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, 
for the Fourth Department; the latter achieved inter- 
national fame by brilliant work in bridge building in the 
United States and South America. 

In 1866 there were two graduates, Sarah Elmina 
Sprague and Mary Cordelia Herrick. Miss Herrick 
became a successful teacher, and afterwards the wife 
of a successful educator; she died in 1907. Miss 
Sprague, who died in 1913, devoted her life to educa- 
tional pursuits, and in later years to the preparation of 
text-books. 

"I well remember," says an early alumnus, "my first 
personal introduction to St. Lawrence University. The 
day previous had been one of storm; the railroads had 
been blocked and traffic suspended. My trip from 



50 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Gouverneur to Canton took about twelve hours, and 
extended into the early morning of December 13, 1864. 
A bright, cold, crisp morning followed, and my first visit 
to the campus was through drifts of snow piled high. 
In the southwest corner of what is now Richardson Hall 
was the room used by Professor Clapp for his work in 
mathematics, and also by the students as a study-room. 
A pile of green wood was in a huge box in the entry, and 
a box stove did service in tempering the winds to the 
lambs there congregated. Who could have predicted that 
in that room on that winter morning were assembled so 
many boys who would achieve future greatness in no 
uncertain measure? 

" Delos McCurdy — who made for himself a name 
among noted lawyers by carrying the Tilden Will Contest 
successfully through the courts, thus achieving reputation 
and wealth at the same time — was there. William A. 
Poste — afterwards Deputy Attorney General of the 
State and Civil Service Commissioner, who by his consci- 
entious, brilliant work was fast making for himself a very 
conspicuous position in the legal profession when death 
cut him down in his early prime — was there. Albert L. 
Cole — who later achieved position and power in Minne- 
sota, where he served his State with marked ability 
in the legislature and was the candidate of his party for 
governor — was there. John S. Miller — the eminent 
corporation lawyer, who through his successful defence 
of the Meat Trust and Standard Oil has come to be 
ranked the peer of any man at the American bar to- 
day — was there. 

"Among the other students of those days who gave 
promise of future distinction was a brilliant young man, 
Lamartine Z. Remington, who, after having attained 
considerable prominence in the newspaper world and in 
the law, early succumbed to that dread scourge, tuber- 



LETTERS AND SCIENCE 51 

culosis. Another was Albert Duane Shaw, who became 
a very able representative of the United States as consul 
at Toronto, Canada, and at Manchester, England, and 
was the representative of his district in Congress at the 
time of his death, in 1901. Still another was Alexander 
O. Brodie, who became colonel of the famous Rough 
Riders after the promotion of General Wood and Colonel 
Roosevelt. After the termination of the Spanish War, 
Colonel Brodie was for a time Governor of Arizona, and 
he achieved marked distinction both as a civilian and 
a soldier. He has since been retired from the United 
States Service with the rank of colonel. And memory 
recalls a number of others, several of whom were in 
the little group around the fire that morning, who have 
done as painstaking though less conspicuous work in 
life's field." 

College life was uneventful and quiet in those days. 
A little skating, a little boating, some baseball, and 
occasionally a sociable; but never a dance, never a class 
banquet, never a Greek-letter society. The attendance 
was small, the equipment meager, the apparatus crude; 
but the teachers were loyal, the pupils earnest, temperate, 
and industrious. It was a happy little family which made 
up the life at St. Lawrence in those days. 

The first ten years of the University were a time of 
restricted resources, of pecuniary stress, and of close 
economy, but the loyalty of faculty and students was 
ardent and unquenchable. It was a formative period in 
which the foundations of the subsequent success of the 
institution were laid deep and wide. Through the priva- 
tion and poverty of those early days the growth of 
the University upon right and lasting lines was begun. 
Northern New York can never fully appreciate its 
obligation to the founders and builders of the insti- 
tution which has done so much to elevate education 



52 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

and to inspire high ideals and worthy aims among its 
people. The students who have gone forth from its 
gates have exerted an influence which cannot be meas- 
ured by human standards, which is enlarging with the 
passing years. 






LETTERS AND SCIENCE 53 



THE SOWERS 

Written by Irving Bacheller, '82, for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of 

St. Lawrence University. 

I know the hills that lift the distant plain, 
The college hall — the spirit of its throngs, 

The meadows and the waving fields of grain, 
Full well I know their colors and their songs. 

I know the storied gates where love was told, 

The grove where walked the muses and the seers, 

The river, dark or touched with light of gold, 
Or slow or swift, so like the flowing years. 

I know not these who sadly sit them down 
And while the night in half-forgotten days; 

I know not these who wear the hoary crown 
And find a pathos in the merry lays. 

Here Memory, with old wisdom on her lips, 
A finger points at each familiar name — 

Some writ on water, stone, or stranded ships, 
Some in the music of the trump of fame. 

Here oft, I think, beloved voices call 

Behind a weathered door 'neath ancient trees. 

I hear sad echoes in the empty hall, 

The wide world's lyric in the harping breeze. 

It sings of them I loved and left of old, 

Of my fond hope to bring a worthy prize — 

Some well-earned token, better far than gold, 
And lay it humbly down before their eyes, 



54 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

And tell them it were rightly theirs — not mine, 
An harvest come of their own word and deed; 

I strove with tares that threatened my design 
To make the crop as noble as the seed. 

So they might see it paid — that life they knew — 
A toilsome web and knit of many a skein, 

With love's sweet sacrifice all woven through. 
And broken threads of hope and joy and pain. 

On root-bound acres, pent with rocks and stones, 
Their hope of wealth and leisure slowly died. 

They gave their strength in toil that racked their bones, 
They gave their youth, their beauty, and their pride 

Ere Nature's last defence had been withdrawn 

That those they loved might have what they could not — 

The power of learning wedded to their brawn 
And to the simple virtue there begot. 

My college! Once — it was a day of old — 
/ saw thy panes aglow with sunset fire 

And heard the story of thy purpose told 
And felt the tide of infinite desire. 

In thee I saw the gate of mystery 

That led to dream-lit, vast, inviting lands — 

Far backward to the bourne of history 

And forward to the House not made with hands. 

You gave the husbandman a richer yield 

Than any that his granary may hold; 
You called his children from the shop and field, 

Taught them to sow and reap an hundredfold. 



LETTERS AND SCIENCE 55 

To sow the seed of truth and hope and peace, 
And take the root of error from the sod; 

To be of those who make the sure increase. 
Forever growing, in the lands of God. 



CHAPTER V 
PROGRESS AND POVERTY 

ELECTION OF PRESIDENT FISK — A QUESTION OF JURISDIC- 
TION — CANVASS FOR FUNDS — TREE HOLIDAY INSTI- 
TUTED HERRING LIBRARY PRESIDENT FISK RESIGNS. 

ON August II, 1868, the Reverend Richmond Fisk, 
Jr., was elected by the Executive Committee 
"President of the Faculty of St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity." The call to the presidency was not the first 
effort to induce Mr. Fisk to enter upon the service of the 
institution. In the winter of 1864-65, the Reverend 
Ebenezer Fisher, head of the Theological School, invited 
Mr. Fisk, then minister of the Universalist Church in 
Lockport, New York, to the chair of Biblical Languages 
and Literature. To a young man, only six years out of 
college, a call demanding such a range of scholarship and 
service was somewhat appalling. He was assured, how- 
ever, that a young man with the tastes and application 
of a scholar, already well advanced in the languages, was 
the kind of man the school was seeking — a man who 
would grow to the full stature of such a scholar and 
teacher as the place would require. The call on due 
consideration was favorably regarded. Mr. Fisk had 
read the Greek New Testament and Plato in his Junior 
and Senior years in Union College under the celebrated 
Greek and Hebrew scholar, Taylor Lewis; and under the 
inspiring and broad-minded teaching of Doclor Laurens 
P. Hickok, he had developed a liking and aptitude for 
philosophical studies. This was in 1857 and 1858, just 



PROGRESS AND POVERTY 57 

before Darwin and his co-workers and successors doomed 
to gradual but certain extinction a vast body of pre- 
suppositions and traditions which had long held sway — 
the profoundest and most far-reaching revolution in the 
history of human thought. In 1864 Mr. Fisk had made 
a good start in Hebrew under the teaching of a German 
scholar who had spent several years in Turkey as a 
missionary of the Lutheran Church. 

On June 18, 1865, Mr. Fisk resigned his pastorate in 
Lockport with the intention of accepting the invitation to 
the Theological School. On July 2 he received an urgent 
call to succeed the Reverend Day K. Lee as minister at 
Auburn. Before deciding definitely on either call, Mr. 
Fisk consulted with several of his ministerial friends and 
received letters from others, among the latter, Doctor 
Edwin H. Chapin of New York, who wrote that the 
demand for acceptable and earnest preachers just then 
was more urgent than for professors. On July 20, Mr. 
Fisk visited the Reverend Orello Cone at Little Falls — 
their first meeting. The former since i860 had been 
reading the New Theological Review, a French periodical 
published in Strasburg, edited by Professor T. Colani — 
a scholar too liberal to be retained on the faculty of the 
University of Geneva in those days. Mr. Cone was 
already giving attentive study to German and the ad- 
vanced Biblical criticism of German scholars. Thus the 
conversation of these newly made friends found congenial 
topics on the views of the leading liberal theologians of 
France and Germany. 

Immediately after this happy beginning of a lifelong 
friendship and correspondence, Mr. Fisk definitely declined 
the professorship offered, informing Doctor Fisher that 
he had discovered a man better qualified, by temperament 
and by his line of studies, than himself for this important 
work, and advising him to open correspondence with Mr. 



58 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Cone. Thus it came about that in September, 1865, 
Mr. Cone began that career as scholar, teacher, and later 
as author, which made his name and that of St. Lawrence 
known and honored among Biblical scholars in Germany, 
England, Scotland, and France, as well as in America. 

It is fitting, and will doubtless prove of interest to 
many, to record, in this connection, by what steps it 
came about that the University secured the services of 
another man whose qualities of mind and character, and 
gifts as teacher, made preeminent his long and efficient 
service at St. Lawrence. In 1864 Mr. and Mrs. Fisk were 
invited to meet the Reverend A. G. Gaines and Mrs. 
Gaines at the residence of the latter's father, Mr. Davis 
Hurd, in Royalton, near Lockport, New York. The 
impression made on Mr. Fisk's mind by this visit was 
deep and lasting. He felt that he had met a man of 
much more than ordinary force of character and a man of 
great intellectual strength. In the winter of 1869-70 the 
Canton Universalist Church was seeking a pastor. Presi- 
dent Fisk was consulted and urged the calling of the 
Reverend A. G. Gaines. He was authorized to correspond 
with Mr. Gaines about undertaking the pastorate, with 
the result that on January 7, 1870, Mr. Gaines arrived in 
Canton, having accepted the call. He remained the 
guest of President Fisk until a house was secured and 
his family arrived. When President Fisk gave notice to 
the Executive Committee of the University of his intention 
to resign the presidency, he urged the selection of Mr. 
Gaines as his successor, provided he could be relieved of 
the distracting work of taking the field for funds — a 
work for which he knew that Mr. Gaines had neither 
inclination nor aptitude. In later years, after Doctor 
Cone and Doctor Gaines had fully proved their ability 
in their respective fields of labor, Doctor Fisk declared 
that two of the best things in his own life were what he 



PROGRESS AND POVERTY 59 

had done toward opening the way to the distinguished 
careers and eminent service of Orello Cone and Absalom 
Graves Gaines. 

Having declined the call to Canton in 1865 in favor of 
Mr. Cone, Mr. Fisk was installed as pastor of the Auburn 
church on September 6 of that year; but he still kept in 
helpful touch with St. Lawrence. On October 15, 1867, 
Mr. Fisk, by special invitation, visited Canton and con- 
ferred with the Executive Committee of the University 
on ways and means of advancing the patronage and 
increasing the funds of the institution. On June 30, 
1868, with no thought whatever of seeking official con- 
nection with the University, Mr. Fisk, by invitation, 
gave an address in Canton, before the college, on "Re- 
ligion, Science, and Education," which was received with 
many expressions of appreciation. Addresses on this 
commencement occasion (July 1 and 2) were also given 
by the Reverend E. C. Bolles and the Reverend J. M. 
Pullman. On July 2 the president and treasurer of the 
Board of Trustees called on Mr. Fisk and tendered him 
the presidency of the University. Surprised by an honor 
unsought and undreamed-of, he could only respond that 
he would consider the matter. While on his vacation at 
the Isles of Shoals, Mr. Fisk received a letter on August 
19, 1868, from Mr. Martin Thatcher of New York, inform- 
ing him that he had been "unanimously elected President 
of St. Lawrence University/' 

At the State Convention of Universalists in Utica on 
August 25, at the age of thirty-two, Mr. Fisk formally 
accepted the office of President of St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity, and on September 6 resigned his charge at Auburn. 
By advice of the Executive Committee, President Fisk 
visited Watertown on September 30, and engaged the 
Reverend D. C. Tomlinson to take the field as financial 
agent of the University, with the consent of his church, 



60 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

on condition that President Fisk supply or provide for 
the supply of Mr. Tomlinson's pulpit in his absence. 

The new president began his duties on October 2. 
An amusing and somewhat embarrassing scene soon 
developed. As the anomalous situation there revealed led 
to specific action at the meeting of the Board of Trustees 
in the following June, the veracity of this history of the 
growth of an educational institution calls for the whole 
story. President Fisk, desiring a conference with the 
teaching force of the University, arranged for a meeting 
at the residence of Doctor Ebenezer Fisher. Doctor 
Fisher, Orello Cone, J. S. Lee, Moses Marston, Nehemiah 
White, and Richmond Fisk were present. After mutual 
greetings all around, President Fisk innocently called the 
meeting to order and invited Doctor Fisher to lead in 
prayer. With perceptible hesitation the good man arose 
and invoked the blessing of God upon all and upon the 
institution they earnestly sought to serve. But before 
the matters about which President Fisk desired considera- 
tion, concerning the conduct, patronage, and immediate 
exigencies of the departments, could be stated by him, 
Doctor Fisher, in the kindest spirit yet with evident 
concern for the independence of his own official position 
and that of the Theological School, sought to correct the 
misapprehension under which he felt that President Fisk 
was laboring. The latter seemed to him to be assuming 
that his official rank gave him some real or fancied author- 
ity over the conduct and affairs of the Theological School, 
— the fact being that the said school was an independent 
department of the University, in the conduct of which 
the official head of the other departments had no voice or 
official connection. The good Doctor was only too sensi- 
tive about his department. Had he waited for develop- 
ments, he and all present would have seen that President 
Fisk had a full understanding of the relations of officials 



PROGRESS AND POVERTY 6l 

and departments on the one hand, and on the other, of 
the responsibility of general oversight of the interests of 
all parts of the institution expressly laid upon the President 
of the University. That is, President Fisk knew that 
Doctor Fisher was the head of the Theological Faculty and 
sole authority in the internal management of that depart- 
ment; but he also knew that on him, as President of the 
University, had been placed the obligation of providing 
ways and means for the increase of funds for additional 
professors and instructors and for the increase of the 
number of students — all of which applied to the Theologi- 
cal School as fully as to the other departments, as coming 
events speedily proved. But at this first — and the last 
— joint meeting of the faculties, the air was so charged 
with uncertainty, if not suspicions, as to the aims, plans, 
and proposals of the new president, that the meeting 
closed without an opportunity for the president to state 
the purposes for which he had called the professors 
together. 

The above described meeting of the faculties was held 
in October, 1868. By December of that year the Theologi- 
cal School called for a third professor; and President 
Fisk was released from class-work and sent by the Execu- 
tive Committee into the field to find funds for that third 
professor. Just here, it is but fair to President Fisk to 
record that he came to the presidency of St. Lawrence 
with the tastes, ambitions, and ideals of a scholar and 
teacher, happy in what he believed was the longed-for 
opportunity to devote himself to a life of scholarly pursuits 
and the education of young men and women. While he 
realized that his position would demand of him the general 
and, as exigencies arose, the special, oversight and care 
of the whole body, he did not imagine that he would be 
called upon practically to abandon his study and class- 
room for the uncongenial task of soliciting special and 



62 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

endowment funds. Hence, it is almost unnecessary to 
say, when, in January, 1869, he was ordered into the 
field to find the means to warrant the appointment of a 
third professor in the Theological School, he awoke to the 
fact that his plans and ideals for study and instruction 
were to be hopelessly shattered. However, he took the 
field without open protest, though protests swarmed 
within, and on January 4, 1869, called on Mr. James 
Braley in Buffalo, taking with him the Reverend Asa 
Saxe, of Rochester, and secured from Mr. Braley a pledge 
of five hundred dollars a year for five years toward the 
support of a third professor in the Theological School. 
Under the encouragement of this generous pledge, Professor 
J. S. Lee, on January 14, 1869, was duly appointed by the 
Executive Committee of the University to this new chair 
in the Theological School. 

On March 11, 1869, at a meeting of the Executive 
Committee of the New York State Convention of Uni- 
versalists, President Fisk was elected a member of the 
Board of Trustees of the University to fill the vacancy 
caused by the death of Doctor Lauriston Amsden, of 
Malone. 

In spite of all the efforts made heretofore to adorn the 
campus with trees, few had survived. It seemed necessary 
that regular efforts should be made every season to plant 
the campus with such trees as the soil, with better care, 
would sustain. Accordingly the president decreed a 
holiday, when all, faculty and students, were exhorted 
to use care in selecting and digging up trees and planting 
them on the campus. The first Tree Holiday was May 
28, 1869, when — though it was already some weeks too 
late to expect good results — the zeal of the students 
added many young trees to the hill. In 1870 Tree Holiday 
was placed on April 22, when forty-two trees were set out, 
thirty-five of them by students. 



PROGRESS AND POVERTY 63 

In May, 1869, Doctor Fisher received a call to the 
Divinity School of Tufts College. He conferred with the 
Executive Committee about the matter, and the induce- 
ments of the larger salary offered at Tufts. He was 
frank in saying that he preferred to remain in Canton, 
and would do so, provided the endowment of his chair 
could be increased by fifteen thousand dollars; and for 
the second time within a year President Fisk entered the 
field to meet an emergency in the Theological School, 
turning for the time being from other demands for which 
he had been in the field soliciting funds for months. 
Doctor Fisher gave but a brief time in which his conditions 
were to be met. This was not only wise for himself, but 
also placed a lever in the hands of the president to raise 
the money by an appeal to the churches to retain at St. 
Lawrence a man the value of whose service could not be 
measured by material standards. President Fisk was 
authorized to call the Reverend D. C. Tomlinson to his 
aid, and on June 8, by appointment, met Doctor Tomlin- 
son in New York. Their united efforts were so far 
successful that on June 15 Doctor Fisher declined the call 
to Tufts, and extended to July 12 the time for completing 
the fund. 

On June 27, 1869, President Fisk preached his first 
baccalaureate sermon, and on June 29, at the annual 
meeting of the Board of Trustees, he was elected President 
of the Board and President of the College of Letters and 
Science of the University. Doctor Fisher was elected 
President of the Theological School, — and this was the 
first occasion on which the two last-named titles were 
officially used. This action was favored by both Doctor 
Fisk and Doctor Fisher, not only to avoid any conflict of 
authority — of which there was never any danger — but 
also to meet and overcome a real obstacle to the patronage 
of the college. In his earliest efforts to awaken greater 



64 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

interest on the part of the public and in the high schools 
of Northern New York, with a view to increasing the 
number of students, President Fisk encountered a stubborn 
prejudice against the college on the ground that the institu- 
tion was a theological and sectarian school. While this 
was never true of the college proper, there had arisen in 
the public mind, from the origin of the institution and the 
earlier opening of the Theological School, a prejudice which 
persisted, though with ever diminishing force, down to 
the opening years of the twentieth century. It was this 
early experience which influenced President Fisk to seek 
to get in personal touch with the academies and high 
schools, especially of St. Lawrence County, and by visits 
and brief talks on education commend to all the liberal 
policy and near-by opportunity which the college offered 
to young men and women of all denominations alike. 
Out of these conferences with principals and pupils in the 
county and beyond came the establishment of free scholar- 
ships in nine schools of the county, and in Clinton Liberal 
Institute. 

On June 30, 1869, the ground was broken by President 
Fisk for the building of Herring Library, the Reverend J. 
H. Hartzell, of Buffalo, delivering a strikingly appropriate 
address. On the evening of the same day, at the Uni- 
versalist church, the formal exercises of inducting Mr. 
Fisk into the office of president were held, the Reverend 
E. C. Bolles delivering an address remarkable for its 
brilliancy, eloquence, and power. At the close of these 
impressive services, President and Mrs. Fisk held a largely 
attended reception at the Hodskin House. On July 14, 
1869, the honorary degree of S.T.D. was conferred by 
Tufts College on President Fisk. 

On December 9, 1871, President Fisk sent his resigna- 
tion to the Executive Committee, to take effect January 
20, 1872. On January 16, 1872, he held his last examina- 



PROGRESS AND POVERTY 65 

tion of his college classes, and in the evening gave his 
ledhire on "The Higher Education" at the Universalist 
church. The next morning he conducted the chapel 
exercises of the college, at the close of which the students 
presented him with resolutions of gratitude for his many- 
services and words of encouragement and high ideals, 
and presented him with a large album filled with their 
photographs. 

Thus closed three and a half years of widely extended, 
varied, and strenuous labors in behalf of the inchoate 
University. Despite all that had been accomplished, the 
outlook still seemed dark and almost hopeless — especially 
for the college, with its utterly inadequate endowment, 
its meager equipment, and its disrupted faculty. For at 
the date here reached the College of Letters and Science 
was left with only two professors in residence; and of 
these the elder and more experienced, Professor Marston, 
was soon forced by serious illness to resign. Yet the dis- 
heartening task was presently taken up by others, and 
after many years of devoted service, marked by ever 
increasing love and zeal for the objecl: of that service, was 
at last brought to a successful issue. 



CHAPTER VI 
TANT.E MOLIS ERAT 

ELECTION AND ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT GAINES 
— HIS CHARACTER AND WORK — PROFESSORS J. H. 
CHAPIN, J. S. MILLER, LUCY G. FRENCH, A. Z. SQUIRES, 
B. J. PINK, W. B. GUNNISON, C. K. GAINES, H. H. LIO- 
TARD, HENRY PRIEST, C. M. BAKER, AND R. D. FORD — 
THE SERVICE REQUIRED. 

ON the resignation of President Fisk, the Reverend 
Absalom Graves Gaines was appointed Acting 
President of the College, and at commencement 
in 1873 he was made President. For fifteen years he 
carried the burdens of administration of the struggling 
school. The work of the college during that significant 
period of its history is discussed elsewhere in this book. 
The character and work of Doctor Gaines are portrayed 
in the following address delivered by one of his pupils, 
Doctor John Murray Atwood, on the occasion of the 
placing of the Gaines Memorial Window. 

"It is eminently proper that this window should be 
dedicated in memory of Doctor Gaines. His name is 
inseparably associated with that of St. Lawrence. For it 
was under his watchful care that the college really took 
deep root, grew, and developed. 

"When Doctor Gaines, while pastor of the local Uni- 
versalist church, became Acting President, the institution 
was in a critical condition. It lacked the commonest 
necessities; it had no endowment; its faculty was dis- 



TANTiE MOLIS ERAT 6j 

organized; some of its strongest teachers had left or were 
leaving. Its future seemed dubious. Some may have 
doubted his ability to cope with the situation. He was 
not a man of popular or showy gifts, and while some who 
waited on his ministry had discovered that he was a man 
of intellectual power and strength of purpose, few had 
any adequate comprehension of his actual attainments. 
But the students who sat under him during that year 
learned — as did every subsequent class — that here was 
a man of genuine scholarship, of sound and varied learn- 
ing, as well as of unusual force of character. It was really 
they who called him to the office of president. It was 
they who ever thought and spoke of him with reverence. 
And it is these same "old students" who have now set 
up in this building, where he so long taught, this me- 
morial to their honored teacher. 

"It was a fortunate day for St. Lawrence, when Doc- 
tor Gaines, thus summoned, took up his labors here. We 
speak enthusiastically today of the 'Greater St. Law- 
rence.' But the work required then was far different 
from that which the president finds imposed on him now. 
He was the man for that task. It was to him not an irk- 
some one, but a work of joy. How he loved this insti- 
tution! How unselfishly, faithfully, he toiled for it! With 
what quiet yet loving interest he watched it slowly grow! 
We frequently speak of saving St. Lawrence University 
— of how the students themselves, in that critical time, 
with almost unexampled devotion to their Alma Mater, 
subscribed several thousand dollars toward the endow- 
ment. We are liable to forget what was necessarily a pre- 
cedent condition for this. For President Gaines, more 
than any other, created an institution to be saved; or, 
if you prefer, he made it worthy such sacrifices. 

"This was accomplished chiefly in two ways: First, 
by the quality of his teaching and scholarship. The ver- 



68 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

satility of his knowledge was only exceeded by its pro- 
ficiency. Doctor Hervey was not the first president of 
St. Lawrence who had to occupy, 'not a chair, but a 
settee.' Doctor Gaines in the speaker's day taught psy- 
chology, ethics, political economy, logic, chemistry, rheto- 
ric, and Butler's Analogy; and it is related that in 
still earlier days the Doctor was wont to teach trigonom- 
etry, physics, and English literature, not to mention other 
branches. But he knew each one. That knowledge is 
power was illustrated in his case, for he always com- 
manded the respect: of his students as one who thoroughly 
understood his subject. 

"To this he added the art of imparting what he knew. 
The value of repetition was well comprehended, and he 
often hammered away on some of his favorite ideas in his 
effort to drive them into the students' minds even at the 
risk of being tedious. But there was method in it; some 
of them we have never been able to forget. He also had 
a power of logical statement and habit of apt, homely 
illustration which drove home and lodged his thought in 
the mind. This was well exhibited in his little treatise on 
"Sound Money," one of the simplest, sanest, and most 
convincing among the many similar books that appeared 
during the free-silver agitation. 

"Above all, he taught as one having authority. By 
this somewhat disputed phrase I mean he spoke out his 
innermost convictions. He was not retailing, second- 
hand from a book, somebody else's notions. Oh, he had 
his favorites in the school of thought. We all became 
familiar with them, at least by name, — Sir William 
Hamilton, Archbishop Whately, and Bishop Butler. But 
the ideas he uttered were his own. They represented the 
product of his thought and experience. Colonel T. W. 
Higginson says somewhere of certain college associates, 
'Death, oblivion, or a professorship has engulfed them 



TANT1 MOLIS ERAT 69 

all' — implying that a professor usually gets out of touch 
with the actual world about him. Doctor Gaines never 
hankered for a conspicuous place in the arena; but in 
the class-room, as in the pulpit, he made his hearers feel 
that he had something which he was persuaded they 
needed to know. He was deadly in earnest. That, in- 
deed, was a persistent note in his character; and he had all 
the life-giving power of one who has a message to deliver. 
"This leads naturally to the mention of the other 
means through which he fulfilled his mission — his per- 
sonality. An eminent biographer, the late Sir Leslie 
Stephen, speaking of Benjamin Jowett, the famous master 
of Balliol College, declared that the reason of Oxford's 
superiority to Cambridge was to be found in the fact that 
the former university was 'long fertile in men who cast a 
spell over a certain number of disciples, and not only prop- 
agate ideas but exercise a personal sway.' This is what 
makes an institution of learning a living force in society 
— not the erudition of its professors, but their force of 
character. The students may forget much that some 
teacher has so carefully taught — they do — but the 
man, if in him was life, they can never forget. His in- 
fluence and their reverence grow with the years. We 
talk about loyalty to Alma Mater — the St. Lawrence 
spirit. What is it that makes any students love their old 
college? Is it memory of the happy days gone by, of the 
friendships formed and the fellowship enjoyed there? 
Partly, — these are of the soul. But it is chiefly because 
here, in the small college at least, they came into vital 
relation with certain noble personalities, who incalculably 
influenced their lives for good and earned their lasting 
gratitude. It is men like Doctor Arnold of Rugby, Prin- 
cipal Shairp of St. Andrews, Mark Hopkins of Williams, 
Benjamin Pierce of Harvard, and Doctor Gaines of St. 
Lawrence, who have served their students and schools 



70 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

most successfully. As Doctor Martineau, himself a teacher, 
put it, 'The only truth which can make one better is not 
of things and their laws, but of persons and their thoughts: 
and I would rather have a single hour's communion with 
some noble soul than to read the law of gravitation 
through and through/ 

"So it was Doctor Gaines taught and wrought — by 
his strong, simple character. In him the man and the 
teacher were inseparable. Lowell said of the Concord 
Sage that people 'went, not to hear what Emerson said, 
but to hear Emersotf; and just so, many students of St. 
Lawrence rejoice, not so much for what they heard Doctor 
Gaines say, but that they heard Doctor Gaines. If, as 
we are being told today, education is more than instruction; 
if it means not simply to pour in ideas, but chiefly to draw 
and lead out the life within — assist the miniature per- 
son to develop his capacities and realize somewhat his 
selfhood and destiny — then Doctor Gaines was preemi- 
nently an educator. That is just the service he rendered 
to his students. To be sure he sowed broadcast, and 
some seed fell on stony ground or among the thorns, but 
some also on good soil. How many there are that have 
risen up to testify to the influence of his life on theirs, 
heightening their ideals, increasing their reverence for 
truth, and their sense of the seriousness and worth of 
life! 

"If it were asked, wherein lay the secret of this strength 
of personality, some might name his moral earnestness, his 
sincerity, his disinterestedness. They might attribute it 
partly — and justly — to the influence of that rare woman 
who was so long his intelligent and sympathetic compan- 
ion. But I should find it in what I shall term his splen- 
did, noble individualism. If you go back to his early 
life before the war, when, brought up in a Slave State, he 
yet dared, because it was his conviction, to oppose the 



TANTiE MOLIS ERAT Jl 

'Southern Institution/ you light upon the quality that 
was throughout his career the main key to his character. 
He lived his own soul straight out. It did not matter 
what others thought, or said, or did, — he followed his 
own conscience. People might criticise, condemn, ridi- 
cule; very well, he did not fret or fume because they did 
not come his way; but he could do no other. He was, 
as Matthew Arnold says in his stanzas on Obermann, one 
of 

' That small transfigured band 
Whom the world could not tame.* 

"Like every straightforward soul, he hated nothing so 
much as shams and hypocrisy. On those rare occasions 
when we saw him thoroughly aroused, he seemed the 
type of righteous indignation. A gentle, unobtrusive man, 
— but let wrong cross his path, and how the fire flamed 
forth and those expressive eyes kindled and gleamed! 
We students understood that the institution, much as he 
loved it, might go down, he might cease to be president 
or professor, but there were some things he would not 
stand for. 

"For a like reason, though he never courted popular- 
ity, never sought to air his opinions, neither did he ever 
seek to conceal them. If you wanted to know where he 
stood on any question, political, ethical, social, you could 
always find out, and his logical reasons withal. Some of 
us well remember how he used to inveigh against pater- 
nalism in government. We may have thought at first 
that it was because of partisan sympathies; but we soon 
learned that, as he lived his own life, so he believed 
supremely in every man's standing on his own foundation, 
and therefore he was unalterably opposed to whatever he 
believed, rightly or wrongly, sapped the spirit of self- 
reliance in men. In an exactly similar manner, I remem- 



72 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ber — as showing the independence of his character — 
hearing him say that he had never endorsed the note of 
any man. It was not from lack of sympathy or of the 
spirit of helpfulness and generosity; certainly no man 
ever gave more, in proportion to his means, to this insti- 
tution. It was a matter of principle. He did not believe 
he had any right to place himself in a position that might 
make him a dependent. And as in this, so in all matters 
he stood by his convictions. Verily, his life was faith. 
As I have thought of this teacher's work and life during 
the past few days, the words of the poet have been con- 
tinually in my mind: 

* By thine own soul's law, learn to live. 

If men hate thee, give no heed, 

If men thwart thee, have no care, 

Sing thou thy song and do thy deed, 

Hope thou thy hope, and pray thou thy prayer. 9 

" People whose only knowledge of him was as they saw 
him walking with measured step up to his classes, his 
hands clasped before him, his basket on his arm, per- 
chance humming a tune, may have wondered at the in- 
fluence of this unconventional man. But if I have given 
any true hint of his character it will not be wondered 
that students revere his memory. His work was lasting, 
his influence a priceless heritage. Let us dedicate this 
window in the hope that the classes and generations that 
shall come hereafter and look upon it will in some way 
catch something of this strong, independent, noble spirit, 
and thus serve their time and honor St. Lawrence. ,, 

Quite characteristic of the administration of President 
Gaines was the zeal and efficiency of the young alumni 
whom he called to the faculty. Their activities were by 
no means confined to the class-room, and in many impor- 
tant ways supplemented the work of their chief. A single 



TANTiE MOLIS ERAT 73 

instance must suffice. During the earlier years of Presi- 
dent Gaines's administration the classes graduated had 
ranged from six to eleven members each, and this was 
then accounted a good showing; but in 1881 only four 
received degrees (though the class had at one time num- 
bered fourteen) and it was felt that an adlive campaign 
for more and better students must be prosecuted. Pro- 
fessor W. B. Gunnison therefore proposed a personal 
canvass of the schools of the county, and the plan obtained 
official backing to the extent of a promise to pay the 
modest livery and hotel bills incurred. He chose as his 
companion in this enterprise Professor C. K. Gaines; and 
the two drove slow and balky horses over many miles of 
country road, visiting Madrid and Waddington and Her- 
mon and Russell and Colton and other neighboring towns, 
everywhere talking college both in public and in private. 
The results were at once apparent: the graduating class 
of 1885 numbered fifteen; that of 1886, fourteen; that 
of 1887, fifteen. This campaign was continued for several 
years, but subsequently lapsed for lack of adequate sup- 
port, — with a marked diminution in the annual registra- 
tion as the immediate consequence. At a later date the 
work was resumed and greatly extended by President 
Hervey, with remarkable success. 

Several of those who were trustees in the time of 
Dodlor Gaines's administration are still members of the 
board. Of those not now living two of the most active 
were William A. Poste, '71, and Foster L. Backus, '73. 
The latter was a regular and most welcome visitor at 
commencements; from his graduation to his death, in 
1907, he missed but one. Mr. Poste also occupied the 
chair of Greek for one year, 1874-75, and did much to 
modernize and improve the methods in that department. 
He was followed, in 1876, by Professor C. K. Gaines, the 
present incumbent. 



74 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The chair of Latin and Greek was held at the beginning 
of the administration of President Gaines by John Stocker 
Miller, '69, who is remembered with a deep sense of indebt- 
edness by those who enjoyed the privilege of his instruction, 
as a thorough teacher who inspired a genuine love of the 
classics. He resigned in January, 1874, in order to engage 
in the practice of law, a profession in which he subsequently 
attained no small distinction. 

Walter Balfour Gunnison, '75, filled the chair of Latin 
for ten years, from 1875 to 1885, with the same vigor and 
personal force which he has since shown as principal of 
the Erasmus Hall High School, one of the largest secon- 
dary schools in the country. Professor Gunnison was a 
master of the art of imparting the somewhat strenuous 
classical training then in vogue, and his classes were put 
through a course of discipline that gave small comfort to 
laggards. Always loyal and active, a man of remarkable 
initiative and executive ability, his contribution to the 
development and to the traditions of St. Lawrence has 
been very great. 

Clement Morelle Baker, '85, succeeded him. Pro- 
fessor Baker was a young man of fine personal qualities, 
of cultivated tastes, accomplished as a musician, and 
popular on account of his genial disposition and his social 
qualifications. His methods as a teacher were much 
milder than those of his predecessor, but he was pains- 
taking and unfailingly sympathetic and helpful. He did 
not live to bring to his department the possibilities of 
maturer years. His untimely and tragic death occurred 
in April, 1892. Says The Laurentian of the following 
month: "His friends were simply all who knew him, in 
town and college alike; he was one of the most lovable of 
men, open-hearted, utterly unselfish, eager to be of service, 
a true son of St. Lawrence." 

During this entire period, and until his death in 1892, 



TANT^E MOLIS ERAT 75 

Doctor James Henry Chapin, of Meriden, Connecticut, 
was Lecturer and Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, 
devoting a portion of each year (later, of alternate years) 
to his work in the University. He was a most estimable 
man, loved and honored by all who knew him. 

One of the first official acts of President Gaines's admin- 
istration was to call to the chair of Modern Languages, 
then vacant through the recent resignation of Professor 
Nehemiah White, Miss Lucy Greenwood French (now 
Mrs. M. B. Coolidge, of Portland, Maine), the daughter 
of an esteemed friend and fellow clergyman. She is well 
remembered by some of the older graduates as a teacher 
of exceptional efficiency and charming personality. 

Bernhard Jacques Pink was Professor of Modern 
Languages from 1875 to 1882. He was an accurate, 
thorough, and efficient teacher. After his resignation he 
became a successful lawyer in Brooklyn. He was suc- 
ceeded by Henri Hermann Liotard, a native of Switzerland 
and a graduate of the University of Paris. For nineteen 
years Professor Liotard filled this position with industry 
and fidelity; he always had recitations at the early morn- 
ing hour, and his classes were always among the largest 
in college. He was patient with his students, and inclined 
to a charitable view of their shortcomings. It was under- 
stood that he computed his grades to a minute decimal; 
it was a flagrant case, however, when his system of mathe- 
matics gave a result below the passing grade. On one 
occasion, with the grieved air with which he administered 
any necessary reproof, he said to a student whose work 
was notoriously poor, "Mr. X, when you try to recite, I 
mark you ten; when you do not try, I mark you zero; 
your grade is two. 9 ' The election of Professor Liotard 
as Professor Emeritus, on his retirement in 1901, attests 
the personal regard in which he is held. 

From 1872 to 1880 the chair of Mathematics was held 



76 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

by Almeron Z. Squires, '68, the thoroughness of whose 
drill in this exacting subject will not soon be forgotten 
by those who were under his charge. Professors Albert 
E. Maltby and Frank H. Peck, 'jj, filled the interim until 
Professor Henry Priest assumed the chair, together with 
Chemistry and Physics, in 1883. In 1887, when Professor 
Priest was relieved of a portion of this excessive burden, 
Robert Dale Ford, '85, was made instructor in this subjecfl, 
which he taught with notable efficiency until 1890. His 
subsequent occupancy of the chair, as professor, belongs 
to a later portion of this narrative. 

Professor Priest had been principal of Goddard Semi- 
nary at Barre, Vermont, and was called as Hayward Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry. He was 
relieved of the mathematics in 1887, but still taught chem- 
istry in addition to physics until 1903, when Edwin Lee 
Hulett, '03, was made instructor in chemistry. In 1905 
chemistry was made an independent chair, with Professor 
Hulett as the incumbent. After the death of Doctor A. G. 
Gaines in 1903, Professor Priest also taught pyschology 
and ethics. In 1889, on the recommendation of President 
Hervey (at the earnest desire of Professor C. K. Gaines, 
senior in length of service but not in age), he was ap- 
pointed Dean of the College; and this honorable and 
responsible position he held, under three successive ad- 
ministrations, until his death in 1912. In recognition of 
his eminence as a teacher, the degree of Doctor of Philos- 
ophy was conferred upon him by Lombard College in 
1898. 

To the extraordinary energy and resourcefulness of 
Doctor Priest was due the early introduction and suc- 
cessful development of the laboratory method of teach- 
ing at St. Lawrence. In the beginning many of the 
necessary appliances were the work of his own hands. 
Happily he lived to see his department established in 



TANTiE MOLIS ERAT J*J 

Carnegie Hall, with an equipment fully equal to that of 
any small college in the State. Strong and virile in 
character, tireless and full of enthusiasm in his work, 
uncompromising in morals, and as frank in speech as 
he was sympathetic at heart, he was for almost thirty 
years one of the most potent factors in the growth of the 
college. 

As another illuminating illustration of the multifarious 
and exacting duties at this time unavoidably imposed 
upon the more experienced faculty members, the work 
performed by Professor C. K. Gaines during the later 
eighties may be cited. In addition to all the regular 
courses in Greek, extending through the entire four years 
of the curriculum as prescribed subjects for classical 
students, he taught English literature, with weekly exer- 
cises in writing; also rhetoric and composition, with many 
themes to criticise and correct; also, for a time, a short 
course in English history in close connection with the 
English literature, and a more extended course in general 
history; also classes in parliamentary law and debate, a 
department that he had himself inaugurated in 1886; also 
for several years, classes in civil government, and subse- 
quently in international law, not to mention minor inci- 
dents. Besides all this, he was then acting as librarian, 
and devoted much time during vacations to the inaugu- 
ration of a more modern system of cataloguing; he was 
editor of the catalogue, and supervisor of other college 
publications; he was likewise secretary of the faculty, and 
constantly active in matters of discipline and adminis- 
tration. Deep into the night the light shone from his 
study windows; for all this endless round of toil he (like 
all the rest, each in his allotted field) performed with un- 
remitting diligence to the best of his ability. 

Such was the service demanded in those days. Such 
was the devoted band of workers which the loved and 



78 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

honored president had gathered about him and filled with 
his own spirit. Great is the debt which the college owes 
to these self-sacrificing men, some of whom died at their 
posts. Not for money (for those who were best paid 
among them were receiving only twelve hundred dollars 
salary) but for love they served St. Lawrence; and in 
no other way could the college have been maintained and 
perpetuated through those arduous, difficult years. And 
out of all this grew and ripened that "St. Lawrence 
spirit" which was soon to rally to the support of the 
struggling school and save it in its hour of greatest need. 



TANTiE MOLIS ERAT 79 

IMO PECTORE 

From The Laurentian of May y i8q2, just after the death of Professor J. H. 
Chapin and of Professor C. M. Baker. 

Life is a battle: His a saying old 

And oft forgotten, yet forever true; 

And each day's march, through perils manifold, 

{And never man the half his danger knew, 

Nor any breath in full assurance drew) 

But brings us nearer to the front, where fall 

More thick the deadly bolts that soon shall smite us all. 

Dream not of safety: on this warring earth 

There is no truce, nor any moment sure. 

Death stalks beside us from the hour of birth: 

And they whose souls are gentlest, and most pure, 

Treading in paths most quiet, most secure, 

In the sweet meadows meet the grimmest foe, 

And are, perchance, the first to feel what all must know. 

We, who beneath the Scarlet and the Brown 

Have marched and toiled and battled year by year, 

And revelled oft, must now more often crown 

The funeral mound, and mourn for friends most dear, 

No festive cup unseasoned with a tear. 

Full are the ranks behind: but in the van 

Our hearts are filled with grief the broken lines to scan. 

We honor those who for their country' 's need 

Endured to die; and let us honor, too, 

These sons of Alma Mater, who indeed 

Fell at their posts, — both him whose task was through, 

And him whose chief est work was yet to do. 

Loyal they were, and brave, and in their graves 

They shall not lie forgot while their loved banner waves. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE CRISIS 

THE MENACE OF INADEQUATE ENDOWMENT — THE COLLEGE 
THREATENED WITH EXTINCTION — THE GREAT RALLY 
AND THE CRUCIAL MOMENT — THE SPIRIT OF 1 886 — 
HOW ST. LAWRENCE WAS SAVED — A CELEBRATION. 

DOWN to near the end of the administration of 
President Gaines, the endowment of the college 
was pitifully meager. The effort to carry on the 
work of the institution with inadequate resources was a 
harrowing struggle. Finally, in 1885, the situation became 
so acute that it was only by contributions to the amount 
of eleven hundred dollars from some of the members of the 
faculty, five hundred dollars from certain trustees, and one 
thousand dollars from Mrs. Eli Robbins of Brooklyn, that 
the income was made sufficient to meet current expen- 
ses. Affairs had reached a crisis where heroic measures 
were imperative. The Board of Trustees decided upon 
an immediate vigorous and systematic movement to 
increase the endowment. 

Nelson L. Robinson, then secretary of the board, was 
the prime mover in organizing and putting in operation 
a plan of campaign proposed by the treasurer, George 
Robinson, at the annual corporation meeting, held on 
June 24, 1885. The subscription agreement then proposed 
by him was adopted, and the president and he were ap- 
pointed a committee to manage the canvass in Northern 
New York. This plan was the result of much anxious 



THE CRISIS 8l 

thought and a settled conviction that substantial help 
must be given to the college by the people of Canton 
before help could successfully be asked elsewhere. Ac- 
cordingly it was determined to confine the canvass, at 
first, to the village of Canton, beginning with those per- 
sons immediately connected with the University, and 
afterwards soliciting subscriptions from the citizens gen- 
erally; thence to extend it to the surrounding towns, and 
finally to the whole of St. Lawrence County, Northern 
New York, and the rest of the State. 

The subscription was generously headed by General 
E. A. Merritt and President Gaines. The treasurer then 
had personal interviews with several members of the 
faculties and the resident alumni, and very encouraging 
subscriptions were made, — though more than ten months 
were consumed in arousing interest and confidence in the 
plan, and those who afterwards became most efficient 
agents in the work were somewhat slow to be convinced 
that the project could be carried out successfully. To 
secure the subscriptions of the faculties and the alumni 
and friends who headed the list required persistent effort 
on the part of the treasurer until the spring of 1886; and 
without doubt this period, before the movement had ac- 
quired momentum, was the most discouraging phase of the 
canvass. 

In May, 1886, it was suggested that much could be 
gained by the concerted and united action of the officers 
of the University. Accordingly the practice was adopted 
of calling together, at the office of the corporation — at 
irregular intervals, but often several times a week — the 
presidents, professors, and resident trustees, who formed 
themselves into a committee of ways and means for 
advancing the cause. At these meetings every possible 
plan for pushing on the work was suggested and discussed, 
and the means provided for executing such measures as 



82 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

were approved. Committees were appointed to visit 
particular persons, to furnish pertinent matter to the village 
and county papers, and to keep up in the community an 
effective agitation of the sub j eel:. As yet, in the latter 
part of May, 1886, only eight thousand dollars had been 
pledged, chiefly by the members of the faculty and a 
few friends and alumni. It was felt to be a critical time, 
and the need of arousing a hearty public interest was be- 
coming urgent. With much misgiving it was planned 
to hold, on the evening of the third of June, at the 
Board of Trade rooms in the Town Hall, a public 
meeting to which all of the citizens of Canton should 
be invited. Communications to the Plaindealer and 
the Commercial Advertiser setting forth the situation 
from many different points of view were prepared by 
President Gaines, President Atwood of the Theological 
School, Secretary N. L. Robinson, Professor C. K. Gaines, 
and others; and letters of invitation, signed by Mr. 
William H. Kimball, Chairman of the Committee of 
Arrangements and Supervisor of the Town, were sent to 
more than two hundred citizens. Copies of this letter, 
to the requisite number, were printed on a hectograph 
in flagrant aniline purple by Professors Gaines and Baker, 
so great was the need of economy. If any copy of this 
letter is still extant it should be filed in the college library 
as an interesting relic. 

This meeting probably represents the most critical 
moment in the history of the college. Deep as was the 
impression it made at the time, no adequate description 
of the scene has been put on record; for the reports 
published at the time were intended solely to serve the 
ends of the canvass, and were argumentative rather than 
descriptive. How vividly many of the events of that 
June evening were imprinted on the minds of some of 
those present was much in evidence in their comments 



THE CRISIS 83 

twenty-five years later, when history in a measure repeated 
itself during President Gunnison's canvass for the two 
hundred thousand dollar endowment fund. Only the lead- 
ing features can be recounted here. 

A partial schedule of exercises had been prepared in 
advance, but at first it seemed impossible to carry out 
the program, and the session opened in fear and trembling. 
Judge W. H. Sawyer, acting as chairman, stated the 
purpose of the meeting, indicated the precarious condition 
of the college, and made a strong appeal to the people of 
Canton for aid, — without which, he argued, little could 
be obtained elsewhere, and the institution could not long 
be maintained. But his earnest plea brought no immediate 
response; no one appeared to have anything to say; a 
depressing and inauspicious silence pervaded the hall like 
a fog. Professor C. K. Gaines, who with Secretary N. L. 
Robinson had charge of the arrangements, hurried from 
one to another trying to get some prominent citizen to 
speak — anything to break the ice — but all refused. 
Though discouraged by these repeated rebuffs, he persisted 
for a time; then, on a sudden impulse as he passed the 
chairman's desk, he turned and himself addressed the 
meeting in such words as an overflowing spirit prompted. 
It was something not on the schedule, — a sudden unpre- 
meditated drive at the heart of the business; but the 
speaker evidently felt that all was at stake and everything 
going wrong, and he could not leave it so. Just what 
was said does not matter now; it served the purpose. 
The chilling silence was dissipated; the fog blew out of 
the hall. One after another rose and spoke with deep 
feeling. The students, a large group of whom were 
gathered in one corner to furnish music, sang "The Scarlet 
and the Brown" for the first time in public, — Professor 
Baker acting as chorister. And they sang with emotion; 
some were in tears. 



84 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

It had not been intended to ask for contributions that 
evening — that was to come later — but soon the speakers 
began spontaneously to pledge generous sums. Especially 
noteworthy were the gifts and words of the Reverend 
Reginald G. Hamilton and the Honorable A. Barton 
Hepburn, both but newly domiciled in Canton; and their 
example had a marked effect in stimulating the older 
citizens to do their duty. Another liberal donor, General 
E. A. Merritt, was unable to be present in person, but 
was well represented by his son, Edwin Merritt, Jr., who 
announced his father's gift in a graceful speech long 
remembered by those who heard it. 

Then came the most memorable event of the evening. 
The students, without solicitation or prearrangement, 
suddenly rallied to the support of their Alma Mater. Just 
how the plan originated is now difficult to determine; 
but Williston Manley, '88, was certainly one of the most 
active factors in this swiftly concerted demonstration. 
These boys were mostly poor, working their way through 
college with hardly a dollar to spare; but on the spur of 
the moment they organized, formed in line and filed up 
to the desk, where each one subscribed quite all that he 
could hope to pay. They were but few in number com- 
pared with the registration of today; yet their line ex- 
tended more than twice the length of the hall, and their 
subscription totaled more than a thousand dollars. 

After that exhibit, none could any longer hold aloof. 
Practically every person present came forward and gave 
what he could; and the signing still went on amid speeches 
and cheering and singing. Some who remembered the 
opening weeks of the Civil War declared that the en- 
thusiasm of this occasion went beyond anything else in 
their experience since the musters and rallies and mass- 
meetings of that stirring period. And unquestionably, 
this act of devotion and self-sacrifice on the part of the 



THE CRISIS 85 

students was what gave the canvass the initial impetus 
necessary for success. It was only the bare beginning 
of a long and arduous struggle; but the final verdict 
must be, The loyal students of St. Lawrence saved their 
college. 

The meeting did not break up until nearly midnight, 
and the total amount subscribed was three thousand three 
hundred and twenty dollars — nearly one-third of it by 
the undergraduates. This, with the pledges already se- 
cured, brought the fund above eleven thousand dollars, — 
conditioned on raising at least fifty thousand dollars. 
Thus far it was not the amount but the spirit shown that 
counted. 

The above account has been gleaned mainly from the 
reminiscences of those who were present. A notable 
speech delivered by Williston Manley, '88, at the banquet 
in celebration of the completion of the two hundred 
thousand dollar endowment in 191 1, gives many interesting 
details. The Commercial Advertiser of June 10, 1886, 
gives abstracts of several of the speeches, and makes some 
mention of the part played by the students, the signifi- 
cance of which was then imperfectly appreciated. Of the 
speeches thus preserved, that of Doctor I. M. Atwood has 
the most lasting interest, showing with characteristic clear- 
ness the situation then existing; and for that reason a 
brief abstract is subjoined. Doctor Atwood was speaking 
in answer to a question put by Duncan M. Robertson as 
to the grounds for the assurance that, in case Canton 
should subscribe fifteen thousand dollars, the remainder 
of the amount could be raised elsewhere. Doctor Atwood 
replied as follows: 

"For years past, the friends and representatives of 
the college have been making in all parts of the State 
urgent appeals for aid. I myself have solicited help from 
many men of means with little success or encouragement, 



86 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

because such men have an idea that Canton people do not 
appreciate the advantage which the college is to them, 
do not contribute to its support, in fact, do not care 
whether school keeps or not. Many of its friends abroad 
object to its location. They say that it is off in a corner; 
that it is on no great line of travel; and if, in addition to 
these disadvantages, it is shown to be among a people 
utterly indifferent to its blessings, certainly there can be 
no inducement for them to give their money to it. Plainly, 
until Canton does her fair share, no money will come from 
outside; and if the college should go, the Theological 
School, with its more adequate endowment, will certainly 
follow the fortunes of the college. On the other hand, the 
history of the school in the past, the generous contribu- 
tions which have come, almost unsolicited, in large 
amounts from all over the State since the foundation of 
the school, and the assurance of friends in different places, 
all give good ground for believing that, with a strong 
backing and a generous subscription at home, our efforts 
to raise the needed funds will not be in vain. In fact, if 
twenty or twenty-five thousand dollars can be raised in 
Canton, I can almost guarantee seventy-five to one 
hundred thousand dollars from the State outside. And 
we should aim to secure not less than the latter sum, 
because fifty thousand dollars additional to what the 
college now has, if raised, would enable the school only 
to eke out a bare existence until further contributions come 
in. What the people of Canton want is not only to keep 
the college alive, but to enable it to grow and keep pace 
with the progress of colleges elsewhere." 

To canvass the town a committee was appointed, 
comprising D. M. Robertson, Sheldon Brewer, E. G. 
Woodbridge, Dennis Woods, C. N. Conkey, Albert Lang- 
don, John F. Post, O. A. Mead, A. T. Martyn, H. W. S. 
Knox, O. W. Crane, and S. N. Judd. During the following 



THE CRISIS 87 

week Mr. Robertson, Mr. Brewer, or the treasurer, or the 
secretary visited nearly every resident of the village, thus 
securing about five thousand dollars. In the meantime 
printed circulars, addressed to the alumni of both schools, 
were prepared by C. K. Gaines and N. L. Robinson, and 
sent out by a committee of the resident alumni. Their 
appeal received a prompt and generous response; replies 
came from all parts of the Union. So rapidly did the fund 
increase that the treasurer was able to report to the 
corporation at its annual meeting, hardly three weeks after 
the Town Hall meeting, that the sum of twenty-one 
thousand five hundred and sixty-five dollars had been 
pledged, of which seventeen thousand four hundred dollars 
had been subscribed by citizens of Canton, — including, 
of course, the faculties of the University; and he gave 
assurance that a total of twenty-five thousand dollars 
would be raised from St. Lawrence County. 

The Board of Trustees requested General Merritt and 
Doctor Atwood to visit New York City, and President A. 
G. Gaines and others to go to Western New York, to 
continue the work. Accordingly General Merritt and 
Doctor Atwood went to New York, called on Mr. Roswell 
P. Flower and others, and obtained generous subscriptions. 
It was felt, however, that the vacation season was unpro- 
pitious for the work, and nothing was done in Western 
New York during the summer. Doctor Almon Gunnison, 
meanwhile, was not idle, but busily engaged in correspond- 
ing with various friends; and he thus obtained several 
munificent subscriptions, which were reported shortly 
before the meeting of the New York State Convention of 
Universalists, held at Canton in October. This so ma- 
terially swelled the fund as to give great encouragement 
to the effort then made. Mr. Bickford at about this time 
generously changed his original subscription of three 
thousand dollars upon condition of one hundred thousand 



88 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

dollars being raised, to the same amount payable upon the 
first fifty thousand dollars. The canvass in Canton and 
the surrounding towns was continued throughout the 
summer by the treasurer and the secretary, and Doctor 
Atwood was in constant correspondence with friends in 
different parts of the State. 

Special efforts were made to secure for the convention 
a large attendance of friends of the school and members 
of the Universalist Church able to give assistance. At a 
mass-meeting held by the convention in the Town Hall 
more than five thousand dollars was added to the fund. 
At the close of this meeting about six thousand dollars 
still remained unsecured. Doctor Atwood immediately 
began a series of visits to Rochester, Buffalo, Branchport, 
Utica, Little Falls, Troy, Hudson, and New York, with 
such success that on the first day of December the amount 
subscribed to the fund reached a safe total of fifty thousand 
five hundred and eight dollars. Further subscriptions had 
raised this amount to fifty-one thousand one hundred and 
three dollars at the date of issuing the annual catalogue 
for 1886-87. 

The zeal of the friends interested in this movement 
was unflagging. President Atwood, Doctor Almon Gunni- 
son, General Merritt, Judge Sawyer, Mr. D. M. Robertson, 
Mr. Sheldon Brewer, General Graves, Professor J. S. Lee, 
the treasurer, and others, were untiring in -their efforts, 
and to them the credit for the final success of the enter- 
prise is in large measure due. A committee consisting of 
Professor C. K. Gaines and others was active in keeping 
the public stirred up and interested through the press. 
Especial honor is due to Mr. Bickford, who made the 
largest personal subscription (and paid it first), and to 
General Merritt, Mr. Barnum, Mr. Thomas Bitley, and 
President Gaines for their generous and self-sacrificing 
benefactions. 



THE CRISIS 89 

The college, though still very needy, was saved; and 
it was deemed proper to celebrate Wednesday, December 
I, the day upon which the canvass must be finished by the 
terms of the subscription agreement, as a holiday and day 
of thanksgiving. 

The following account of the exercises on that day is 
mainly derived from the report printed in the Commercial 
Advertiser for December 9, 1886. 

"Wednesday, December 1," the report begins, "was 
celebrated by the faculty and students of St. Lawrence 
University as a holiday, in commemoration of the success- 
ful completion of the canvass for fifty thousand dollars 
for the more adequate endowment of the College of Letters 
and Science. The full fifty thousand dollars was obtained 
Tuesday, and Mr. William H. Kimball, President of the 
St. Lawrence County Bank, certified to the completion 
of the subscription. During Wednesday, however, other 
sums came in, carrying the total up to fifty thousand eight 
hundred and eighty-eight dollars. It was also announced 
that additional subscriptions amounting to thirteen thou- 
sand dollars are already on paper toward the next fifty 
thousand dollars." 

The report goes on to state that in the morning a union 
chapel service was held, in which the faculties and students 
of both departments participated. In the evening a 
general meeting of citizens and Laurentians was held in 
the Town Hall. Music was provided by Livingston's 
orchestra, by the college quartette, and by the students. 
Professor C. K. Gaines, chairman of the committee of 
arrangements, called the meeting to order, and introduced 
as the chairman of the evening Doctor I. M. Atwood, 
— "Without whose efficient and still recent labors," said 
the speaker, "there would be no celebration tonight." 
Prayer was offered by President Gaines. Doctor Atwood, 
as chairman, then spoke as follows: 



90 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

"I have been asked by the committee of arrangements 
to preside, but have been charged not to omit to make 
the speech the committee had in their own secret councils 
decided I was to make. Condensing as much as possible, 
I ask you first of all to credit the idea of this celebration 
to Doctor Almon Gunnison of Brooklyn, who in a letter 
to me last Saturday, suggested that it is not every day 
we save a college, and that the event deserves to be 
marked by the ringing of bells, by bonfires, and a students' 
holiday. We were proud to act on the suggestion, but the 
interval after we were sure the full fifty thousand dollars 
had been pledged was too short to admit of any more than 
the most extempore arrangements. 

"I presume some of you are thinking of the effort it 
has cost to get this sum subscribed, and the effort and 
self-denial it will cost many of us to perform what 
we have promised. Well, it has cost effort, and it will 
cost more. But what we have preserved is worth all 
the cost. 

"If you look at it financially, we have saved much 
more than fifty thousand dollars in property on yonder 
hill. The difference between the value of that property 
with the college in operation and the college closed is 
certainly as much as fifty thousand dollars. Again, close 
the college and you reduce the valuation of property in 
this village more than fifty thousand dollars at one stroke. 
Canton village has subscribed about nineteen thousand 
dollars, in round numbers, to this fund. But you saved 
three times that to the valuation of your property. If the 
University and the town should pass receipts, the town 
would be greatly the gainer. But we have saved more 
precious things than property. No money can represent, 
as no money can buy, the social refinement, the intellectual 
culture, the moral character, of which this college is the 
perpetual fountain. 



THE CRISIS 91 

"I wish to emphasize here another thing. We have 
demonstrated over again the truth of the proverb, 'God 
helps those who help themselves.' While we went out 
empty-handed into the State and pleaded eloquently, 
almost tearfully, for help, we got nothing. We were looked 
upon as mere beggars. But when we took our own salva- 
tion into our own hands, and having on our paper more 
than thirty thousand dollars of the stock subscribed by 
faculty, alumni, and citizens, asked our friends if they 
would like to take the rest, the response was prompt. 
It was not as beggars but as co-partners in a thriving 
business that we now appealed, and there were few that 
could resist our appeal. 

"We are here to celebrate the successful completion of 
our effort. But let me admonish you that in all our 
enthusiasm and gratitude we are not to forget that this 
is but the beginning of good things. What we have done 
is a pledge of what we can do; and by patient continuance 
in the same liberal and self-sacrificing course which has 
marked this canvass, we shall at length see St. Lawrence, 
our pride and joy, not only saved from death but supplied 
with all the means of a large and enduring life. 

"It is but fitting and proper that you should hear first 
from a man who needs no introduction to the citizens 
of Canton; the man who has not only made the largest 
personal subscription to the endowment, relatively to his 
means, but has given the best years of his life to the labor 
of building up this school. I call upon President A. G. 
Gaines." 

Doctor Gaines began by saying that all day long he 
had been feeling keenly and regretting much his inability 
to "gush." When all around him were exuberant in their 
joy, and the occasion so worthy, he deplored this imper- 
fection of his character. He had probably borne the 
burden of anxiety, of hope deferred, of hoping against 



92 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

hope, longer and in a higher degree than any one else. 
For fifteen years he had been set to make bricks without 
straw — or with the task, in large part, of furnishing or 
finding the straw — and no wonder if it had often seemed 
to him that the day of deliverance would never dawn. 
Twice only in all that time had his feelings overcome him. 
First, on the third of June, when the undergraduate 
students marched up in a body and put down liberal 
subscriptions for the saving of the college. Secondly, the 
previous evening, when at home he undertook to read 
aloud the certificate of Mr. Kimball that the fifty thousand 
dollars had been fully subscribed. "But now," continued 
the speaker with deep feeling, "thank God, there is a 
brightening in the east, and the day is already heralded, 
and we may and should all rejoice with a very sincere and 
fervent joy." 

"In the doing of this work," said Doctor Gaines, "I 
feel that my own has been a very humble part. It is not 
my gift to touch men's pockets and bring forth the needed 
dollars. That work and honor belong to others, — first 
of all to the devoted loyalty, the untiring energy and 
push, of the Secretary of the Board of Trustees, Nelson 
L. Robinson, an alumnus of the class of 1877. Next to 
him the highest honor and gratitude are due to the able 
and devoted work of my friend and colleague, Doctor 
Atwood, who took up the work and carried it on to the 
completion that we celebrate today. All honor to him, 
and may his joy be full. Great honor, too, is due to the 
faculty, not only for subscriptions of extraordinary liberal- 
ity, relatively to their means, but no less for their industry 
and ability in doing such worthy work upon such slender 
support." 

"As for myself," continued Doctor Gaines, "though I 
have put all that I have into the college, I have received 
from the college in rich experience what is worth ten times 



THE CRISIS 93 

more than all the money that has ever passed, or ever 
will pass, through my hands. And what shall I say of the 
students and alumni? Was ever work and loyalty like 
theirs matched in the history of colleges in all the world? 
God bless and support and guide them in their work, now 
and forever. And yet again, all honor and joy to the 
citizens who have assisted in this work. They shall receive 
manifold harvest even in material good, but much more in 
the fruits of knowledge and character which will come as 
the products of their liberality. Honor alike to those who 
have given little and those who have given much, for all 
have given from love and good-will. Sometimes he who 
gives least in money gives most in love, and so is the most 
worthy. Then let all, rejoicing together, and celebrating 
this happy day, learn that good work already done should 
be the earnest and prophecy of more and still better work 
to be done in the days and years to come. Let no one 
rest in a good work done, as the end of his duty and of his 
work. Let him rather make it the pledge and prophecy 
that he will go on, and in the future attest by his deed 
that the more he gives, the more he has to give." 

Doctor Atwood then proceeded: "The idea of this 
canvass originated with a gentleman whose zeal, perse- 
verance, and ingenuity, have made possible this jubilee 
tonight. I well remember how, a year ago, he told me 
that he thought the money to build up the college could be 
secured in Canton and in this county. I was surprised 
and skeptical. When he said he was willing to give 
live hundred dollars I was amazed, for I knew that he was 
poor and only starting in life. But I saw that this was an 
expression of pure gratitude to the school and devotion to 
the higher things of life. It set me to thinking. He has 
proved his thesis. He has originated and borne a large 
part in carrying out the measures which have made the 
canvass so successful. Notwithstanding his modesty, we 



94 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

must have a word from him. You all know Mr. Nelson 
L. Robinson." 

Mr. Robinson began, — " Solvitur acris hiems grata 
vice veris et Favoni. Mr. President, when I was a Sopho- 
more in the college, the Latin professor made me learn 
that, with other choice passages from Horace, saying that 
they would be useful as quotations in public speaking. 
I have never had occasion to use them before. But since 
'Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious sum- 
mer* — or at least thawing into a kind and gentle spring — 
I think that in this company and on this academic occasion 
I may venture to try one of them/' 

"This money/' said Mr. Robinson, "has been raised by 
self-denial on the part of this community. It has been 
the work, not of one person or of a few, but of a people. 
You may have thought of the Carthaginian women giving 
their hair for bow-strings to save the city, and of our 
grandmothers melting their pewters into bullets and offer- 
ing their plate, what there was of it, for the cause of 
liberty during the Revolution, as illustrations of what has 
been done. To my mind the spirit of the benefactors of 
the college has been something like that of the cathedral 
builders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The 
chroniclers tell us how, as at Chartres, the people came 
from the whole region round about, from far and near, 
in carts, and on foot, barefooted, driving their beasts 
before them, bringing all their goods as offerings to the 
Saint and Our Lady; not a few, but all the people; the 
noble and his lady, the craftsman and artisan and serf; 
the women offering their jewels and all their most precious 
treasures in order that the good work might go on; the 
men with their own hands dragging the stones to the site 
and laying them into the walls. Out of this spirit grew 
those miracles in stone, that frozen music, which will be 
the delight of the world for all ages. 



THE CRISIS 95 

"In a humbler way our work has been of a similar 
character. In it we have joined, with one spirit of love 
and zeal; teachers, clergymen, physicians, lawyers, mer- 
chants and business men, the clerks in their shops, crafts- 
men and mechanics, laborers and men who earn their 
bread by the hard toil of their hands, the janitor of this 
hall and the printer's devil who works on the college 
catalogue, all had an honorable part in it. 

"But in our rejoicing we look to the future. You 
noticed in Mr. Lowell's noble oration, and in all the 
speeches at the Harvard celebration, that together with a 
just feeling of pride in the character and work of that 
great university there is a spirit of keen self-examination 
and criticism, with a view to greater progress in the future. 
Mr. Lowell says that every college, like every man, must 
ask itself what it is, and where it is. We also have to ask 
these questions. In their higher aspects they have been 
touched upon by President Gaines and nearly every 
speaker. Allow me just a word as to their financial 
bearing. There have been secured at this date fifty 
thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight dollars. Up- 
wards of thirteen thousand dollars are pledged upon the 
second fifty thousand dollars. It is our immediate duty 
to get that second fifty thousand dollars, and to get it 
without delay. I cannot tell you what particular persons 
are going to give it, but I am sure the money is to be 
had. We must not let the work lag." 

And the work did not lag. The second fifty thousand 
dollars was presently secured. The struggle to secure an 
adequate endowment for the college was soon taken up by 
President Hervey, who achieved notable results amid 
many difficulties, and was brought to a triumphant climax 
by President Gunnison in 191 1. 



96 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 



THE SCARLET AND THE BROWN 

By Charles Kelsey Gaines, '76: first sung at the Rally Meeting, June 3, 1886. 

Lot the summit of a hill in a far off northern land 

A sturdy old pile doth crown: 
From the summit of that pile — may its walls forever stand — 

Wave the folds of the scarlet and the brown. 

Chorus: 

Wave the folds of the scarlet and the brown, 

That we ne'er will see hauled down; 

And though we students may be scattered far and wide, 

Still we'll rally to the scarlet and the brown, the brown, the 

brown, 
Still we'll rally to the scarlet and the brown. 

From the summit of that hill in the merry days of yore 

Full oft have I wended down; 
But my heart was sad and sore when I went to climb no more 

'Neath the folds of the scarlet and the brown. 

'Neath the folds of the scarlet and the brown, etc. 

On the summit of that hill gather mem'ries bright and fair, 

That I cannot and I would not drown; 
For my heart is ever there, where upon the northern air 

Float the folds of the scarlet and the brown. 

Float the folds of the scarlet and the brown, etc. 

From the summit of that hill where our Alma Mater stands 

May her ensign still look down: 
Though her loyal children's hands toil afar in many lands, 

They will rally to the scarlet and the brown. 

They will rally to the scarlet and the brown, etc. 



CHAPTER VIII 
EARLY UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES 

THE OLD CHAPEL AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS — THE THELOMA- 
THESIAN SOCIETY AND ITS EVENTFUL HISTORY — SCARLET 

AND BROWN COLLEGE POLITICS TREE HOLIDAY AND 

ITS LEGENDS. 

HERE our narrative pauses for a little space to 
take account of those more intimate phases of 
undergraduate life which, beyond anything else, 
create and determine what is called the college spirit — 
always a potent factor at St. Lawrence. Of these we 
have had some glimpses; but now it is necessary to 
make a closer inspection — for without due appreciation 
of these subtle but vital influences, this story of the 
growth of a college would remain a vapid chronicle of 
unexplained events. In such a survey we shall need to 
glance backward, and often forward, to obtain a coherent 
view of the various college activities; but since we have 
reached a date when the characteristic college spirit was 
already well developed, and the campus had become rich 
in traditions, and many student institutions had defin- 
itively taken shape, no place seems more suitable than 
this for the introduction of these topics — an understand- 
ing of which will illuminate all that comes after. In- 
deed, the following chapters form a natural connecting 
link between the old and the new. 

During the early decades a room in the south end of 
Richardson Hall on the first floor was used as a chapel. 



98 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

It was of the same length and breadth and in the same 
relative position as the room on the second floor at present 
used by Professor Gaines as a class-room; it is now com- 
pletely obliterated, being cut through by the extension of 
the south hallway to the outer wall. If the walls could 
speak, they might tell of many a stirring event which 
took place there in days gone by. That room had a va- 
ried career, and plays an important part in the reminis- 
cences of early graduates. At first a small platform, 
with a little white pulpit upon it for the usual exercises, 
stood at the east end; later, during the administration of 
President Gaines, this was enlarged to the full width of 
the room. In the rear was a large box stove, fed with 
great billets of beech and maple from the forests then so 
abundant in this region. The floor was rough, with many 
humps and hollows, and several rows of rather fragile 
wooden settees, built like chairs and as easily moved, 
served as seats. The walls were quite elaborately finished, 
with stucco work around the ceiling and windows. The 
outside door, facing toward the gymnasium, was closed 
by heavy bolts and little used, merely serving to give 
symmetry to the building as a whole. Although that 
room would now scarcely accommodate one class, at that 
time it easily held all the college students. 

The morning prayers in the chapel were simple but 
very impressive. The entire faculty used to assemble in 
a room at the left of the entrance, now part of the wom- 
en's cloak-room, but long occupied by President Gaines 
as a lecture room; they then filed into the chapel and 
took seats on the platform. The roll was called from the 
platform every morning, and on Monday the students 
answered " present " or "absent" according to whether or 
not they had attended church the day before. The sys- 
tem of chapel monitors was not introduced until the fall 
of 1893, during the administration of President Hervey > 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES 99 

when the increased number of students made more room 
necessary and the chapel exercises were transferred to 
Fisher Hall, where, by courtesy of the Theological School, 
they have ever since been held. Up to the time of this 
removal, chapel exercises were held rigorously six times a 
week. On Saturday there was then only one recitation, 
at 9 a.m.; but whether or not a student had a class to 
attend on that day, chapel attendance was required — 
and there was no allowance for "cuts." 

Besides serving as a chapel this room was put to 
many other uses, and was really the center of college life. 
Tree Holiday entertainments were given there, and the 
college dances often held there were greatly enjoyed in 
spite of the uneven floor. Finally some enterprising stu- 
dents presented a play, the proceeds of which were de- 
voted to providing a hard-wood floor, part of which is 
still in evidence in the President's office. 

The chapel was also employed for weekly rhetoricals, 
in which all undergraduates took part. It is related that 
one irrepressible student was reproved for giving too friv- 
olous a selection. He resolved not to lay himself open 
to that charge again, and the next time he gravely re- 
peated the entire preface to the Latin grammar. Another, 
endowed with an amazing memory, began at the begin- 
ning of "Paradise Lost" and went on and on until the 
professor in charge directed him to stop, when he closed 
with a promise to give the rest next time. 

It was the use of the chapel as a study-room that 
touched most intimately the life of the students. It was 
the general meeting place, and many other exercises quite 
incompatible with study were at times indulged in. On 
one occasion extemporaneous dramatics were in progress, 
and one youth had just struck a tragic attitude before 
another with the words, "I'll have thy life!" when Presi- 
dent Gaines appeared on the scene with the quiet an- 



IOO SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

nouncement, "We'll have just a little less life, if you 
please." 

At other times athletic performances interrupted the 
preparation of lessons. In a notable wrestling-match 
which suddenly developed in this place in the spring of 
1872, a now dignified alumnus of the seventies was swung 
feet uppermost against the window frame, where his fly- 
ing heel left an enduring mark on the woodwork; thus he 
left his mark in the college before he made it in the world. 
On another occasion, two subsequently very distinguished 
gentlemen — identical, in fact, with the wrestlers just 
mentioned — started a contest as to who could jump over 
most settees. One after another was drawn up until they 
stood six deep, but when the seventh was added the con- 
test ended with a crash of splintering wood. One day in 
the spring of 1873, three students of the class of '76 suc- 
ceeded in overpowering a certain formidable athlete of the 
class of '75, and started to carry him out of the room. 
They made the mistake of trying to take him out feet 
foremost, and when they reached the door he jerked one 
foot loose, planted it against the door jamb, and kicked 
with all his strength. All the participants were thrown 
prostrate and were lying amid the wreckage of an unfor- 
tunate settee which had sustained the impact of their fall, 
when suddenly the door flew open, revealing President 
Gaines, whose appearance was always the signal for in- 
stant order. He gave one look, saw his own son in the 
midst of the floundering mass, and silently retired, ap- 
parently unable to trust himself to speak; but athletic con- 
tests in the chapel were at an end for that day, and four 
phenomenally silent and subdued young men stole out of 
the room. The truth is, President Gaines had a temper 
naturally hot and even extreme, but habitually kept under 
severe restraint, — a fact of his make-up which many 
failed to perceive, but well known to himself and in- 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES 101 

stindtively felt by his students, especially in the earlier 
days of his administration. This, rightly understood, ex- 
plains many things, and in particular the remarkable 
personal dominancy and power of quelling disorder which 
he manifested on many occasions. 

It was in this room that meetings of the original de- 
bating society, now remembered only by a few of the 
oldest alumni, were held. Soon after the foundation of 
the University, an organization composed of nearly all 
the students and known as the St. Lawrence Literary 
Society was formed. This society had the usual officers, 
and at each meeting a moderator was chosen to preside 
over the debate. In the early days Professor J. S. Lee 
always attended the meetings. 

In 1863 the Thelomathesian Society was organized. 
The name was the somewhat un-Attic result of the joint 
efforts of two early students of Greek, Allen E. Kilby, '69, 
and Vasco Abbott, of the class of 1867. The former after- 
wards made an excellent record for honesty of purpose 
and sobriety of judgment as a member of the New York 
Legislature, and has long been one of the leaders of the 
Jefferson County bar. The latter, a prominent lawyer and 
business man of St. Lawrence County, has been surrogate 
of the county and was a member of the New York State 
Constitutional Convention. The name Thelomathesian, in- 
tended to mean "desire for learning," expressed the gen- 
eral purpose of the organization. For many years the 
Thelomathesian Society was a power, not only in the 
college, but in the town as well. It attracted the best 
students in the college and the best people of the village. 
At times the meetings were crowded to the doors, with 
men and women standing in the hall to listen; often pro- 
fessors and lawyers would be there. The members some- 
times spent weeks in careful preparation for a debate, 
reading every available authority on both sides of the 



102 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

question. No lawyer prepared his case more carefully. 
The debates were occasionally stormy, but they gave 
valuable training for a wider sphere of action, not only 
in the actual ability to make a public speech, but in the 
feeling of strength and poise acquired. A certain young 
man in a public meeting one night, when a question of 
diplomacy was being discussed, rose and astonished the 
crowd with his knowledge of the history and philosophy 
of the subject. He got it all in preparing for a debate 
in the Thelomathesian Society. 

In the spring of 1867, in imitation of proceedings like 
those in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson one 
year later, articles of impeachment were presented against 
the president of the society, Vasco P. Abbott. A very 
earnest trial was held, William A. Poste representing the 
prosecution and Allen E. Kilby the defense. After a pro- 
tracted contest, in which much skill was shown by the 
attorneys on both sides, the impeachment proceedings 
failed and the president was exonerated. 

In 1867 the theologues, having no society of their own, 
organized what they called the Eromathian. In 1880, 
through the efforts of John Clarence Lee, '76, then in the 
Theological School, the name was changed to Philoma- 
thian. The theologues sometimes disagreed. Once a fac- 
tion withdrew in a body and established the "Society for 
Christian Research. " The Society for Christian Research, 
however, was short lived, while the Eromathian, later the 
Philomathian, lived on to develop later into the Pauline 
Brotherhood, and finally into the Eta Pi Alpha fraternity. 

The Theolomathesian Society, meanwhile, was carry- 
ing on lively debates, mock trials, and the like; it was 
not, however, until 1874 that things began to get excit- 
ing. Just prior to that time a society known as the P. D. 
sprung into existence. It was believed to be one of the 
aims of this club to control the Thelomathesian Society; 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES IO3 

it was a manifest fact that the members commonly acted 
together and were apt to carry their point. Even in 
those days the presidency of the Thelomathesian was ac- 
counted a great honor, the highest in the gift of the 
students, especially in the spring term; for the holder of 
this office had the distinction of introducing the com- 
mencement lecturer. Those outside the P. D. circle, be- 
ing rather jealous of the new secret society, soon adopted 
a policy of "preparedness/' and there were some warm 
battles. The first serious break came in the spring of 
1874. C. F. Ainsworth, '74, the only male member of 
his class, had been elected president, with the acquies- 
cence if not the full approval of P. D. His alleged neg- 
lect of duty, however, presently offered a pretext for 
complaint, and elaborate articles of impeachment, brist- 
ling with whereas's and wherefore's, were drawn up in 
due legal form. These were presented by Frank N. 
Cleaveland, 'jy, who read them in full from an imposing 
roll of manuscript. A fiery debate ensued, in which W. 
B. Gunnison, L. P. Hale, C. K. Gaines, and many other 
leading spirits of the time took an active part, the vice- 
president, L. A. Doolittle, '75, presiding. The theologues 
and the women in the main stood by the president, and 
the resolutions were finally defeated by one vote. Al- 
though the impeachment thus resulted in failure as 
regards its immediate purpose, the influence of this pro- 
ceeding in enhancing the dignity and responsibility of the 
presidential office was deeply felt, and election to this 
position is to this day the highest honor which a student 
may receive at the hands of his fellows. 

Tradition says that the college colors were adopted at 
a meeting of the Thelomathesian. It was in the spring 
of 1876, after considerable general discussion, especially 
among the Seniors, that a committee was appointed to 
consider the question of college colors and report. This 



104 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

committee consisted of Inez Jones, John Clarence Lee, 
and Clara Weaver, all of the class of 'j6. The committee 
unanimously recommended scarlet and brown, — colors first 
suggested by Miss Weaver. Blue and garnet were also 
named by the committee as second choice, but the scarlet and 
brown proved acceptable and were adopted as the college 
colors, probably at a meeting of the Thelomathesian held 
in April, 1876. Its president that term was Charles K. 
Gaines, f j6, who subsequently wrote the St. Lawrence 
song, "The Scarlet and the Brown," first sung at the 
memorable mass-meeting in the Town Hall on the third 
of June, 1886, as described on a previous page. Soon 
after the adoption of the colors the first college flag was 
made by the girls. The design is said to have been a 
scarlet field surrounded by a brown border, with the 
letters S. L. U. in brown in the center. It was probably 
first used on the following Tree Holiday. 

The rivalry in society politics due to P. D. and other 
causes continued for a long time, and the Thelomathesian 
was the favorite arena. Every election was hotly con- 
tested. Tickets with the rival nominations were always 
printed and thoroughly distributed; the campaign was 
started weeks beforehand. The spring elections came 
about midwinter, when many students who were working 
their way through college were absent teaching in the 
district schools. There was always a great effort to get 
these members back to cast their ballots, — for they could 
not vote by proxy. F. N. Cleaveland, 'jj, remembers 
driving for miles through almost impassable drifts to 
fetch in a much-needed voter. After a serious breakdown 
they arrived just in time for the election, but had no 
time to eat so much as a mouthful until the crisis was 
safely over. This was in 1875. Later, Professor Ford 
tells of a time when he left his school in Colton at three 
o'clock in the afternoon, and by driving as fast as he 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES I05 

could over the awful roads reached the college just in 
time to cast his ballot. 

Tradition has it that Byron Traver, '80, once happened 
to be present at one of these elections, and though not a 
member of the society was inadvertently appointed teller. 
Traver was a member of P. D., and when the votes were 
being cast he said to the other teller, "We're on op- 
posite sides; it won't make any difference if neither of us 
votes." So his opponent was dissuaded from casting his 
ballot, and the election went to the P. D. candidate by 
a narrow margin. This was the election which resulted 
in the notorious contest and trial of 1878. John N. Bas- 
sett and Frederick S. Lee were the candidates, and the 
dispute waxed so furious that at length some of the 
alumni felt it necessary to interfere. Walter B. Gunni- 
son, then professor of Latin, William A. Poste, who had 
recently held the chair of Greek, and several others were 
called in to pacify the excited students — but to no avail. 
Finally the matter was referred to a board of arbitration, 
and was decided, after a full hearing, by a committee of 
professional lawyers, consisting of D. M. Robertson, Al- 
meron Z. Squires, and Worth Chamberlain, who rendered 
a verdict in favor of Mr. Bassett. 

This was the climax in the history of the Thelomathe- 
sian Society. Gradually the interest waned, — a result 
largely due, no doubt, to the growing interest in national 
Greek-letter fraternities, which were then beginning to ap- 
pear at St. Lawrence. In 1881 a "Legislative Assembly" 
was organized under the auspices of the Thelomathe- 
sian Society, at the suggestion of Worth Chamber- 
lain, L. S. '70, who consented to preside at its sessions, 
and to whose zealous efforts most of its unfortunately 
transient success was due. 

Mock trials, also, were occasionally held. One of 
the most memorable of these was in the fall of 1875, 



106 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

when two estimable young ladies were indicted for steal- 
ing a horse and carriage from a local livery stable — un- 
derlying which charge was a trifling basis of fact, due to 
a misunderstanding. The prosecution was conducted by 
W. B. Gunnison and C. K. Gaines, the defense by L. P. 
Hale and F. N. Cleaveland, and Professor A. Z. Squires 
acted as presiding judge. The case was well worked up, 
a remarkable feature being the great mass of evidence 
brought on by the prosecution; and the accused had a 
narrow escape — the jury, consisting of six theological 
students, failing to agree but standing four to two in favor 
of conviction. Many years later, in 1894, a popular 
young lady of the Senior class was brought in as plaintiff 
in a breach of promise suit. The best hits in this trial 
were the whimsical charge to the jury by Lawrence C. 
Sawyer, '8i, who presided with much benignity of manner, 
and the doggerel verse in which the clerk of the court, 
Lamotte K. Devendorf, ex- 96, delivered his speeches. 

There was always plenty of music at the meetings of 
the Thelomathesian in the early days. Often the pro- 
gram announced "Music by the Beta Quartet" or "by 
the Kappa Chorus," and on one program appeared a 
"Mouth Organ Duet, by Messrs. Hodge and Roulston." 

In 1888 and 1890 we find The Laurentian making a 
strenuous plea for the reorganization of the Thelomathesian 
Society; but the students could not be roused. Finally, 
at a meeting held on March 10, 1894, Owen D. Young, 
'94, moved that the Thelomathesian Society, as such, 
be abolished and the whole body of students incorporated 
in an organization bearing the same name, and that this 
organization have charge of Tree Holiday, the Freshman- 
Sophomore debates, and mock trials. It thus became 
simply a mass-meeting of the student body, called to- 
gether at irregular intervals to discuss questions of general 
student interest, and an old alumnus attending its meet- 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES 107 

ings would have failed to recognize it. In recent years 
the organization has received a great development along 
these lines, and has become the chief instrument of stu- 
dent legislation and self-regulation, with an elaborate 
constitution, and with various subordinate boards and 
officials to carry on its work. It was by vote of the 
Thelomathesian, ratified by the faculty, that the Honor 
Code was adopted in 191 3. 

Reference has been made in a previous chapter to the 
establishment of Tree Holiday. At first instituted with 
the practical aim of adorning the college grounds with 
trees, this holiday subsequently became an elaborate 
spring festival. Later, with the gradual increase in the 
size of classes and the intensification of class feeling, it 
became an occasion for more or less disorderly demon- 
strations by the Sophomores and Freshmen, in conse- 
quence of which it was finally abolished during the 
administration of President Gunnison. 

The following sketch of the first Tree Holiday has 
been received from Mrs. Viola Austin Griffin, '74. 

"Late in the spring the students and a part of the 
faculty held an informal meeting with a view to devis- 
ing some means to relieve the bleak appearance of the 
college campus. What is now called Richardson Hall was 
the only edifice to relieve the monotony of a dozen 
acres of rather barren meadow land crowning the hill. 
Trees there were, but very few, consisting of a group of 
worm-eaten apple trees where Fisher Memorial now rises, 
and a few scrubby specimens of Mountain Ash bordering 
the long wooden walk leading up the slope to the college 
buildings. There may have been a few others, but noth- 
ing of any consequence. 

"At the meeting it developed that some one would 
donate the use of a team and wagon if the young men 
would go to the woods and dig up young saplings; after 



108 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

which they were to plant them upon the campus where- 
ever it suited their own sweet will. Under the leadership 
of John S. Miller, '69, then a tutor in the college, the 
trees were brought and piled in convenient places. Mean- 
while the girls — few in number, for in those days the 
ratio of women to men was about one to three — in their 
feminine desire to aid and encourage all good works, had 
prepared in the basement of the main building (for at 
that time a boarding house was run in connection with 
the Theological School) a bountiful repast, comprising 
coffee and custard pie and other items now forgotten. 
In the afternoon, after the planting of the trees — each 
young man setting out one for himself and one for some 
favored damsel — an old-fashioned game of baseball was 
played on the campus. 

"Of course most of the trees died before another 
spring, but that only improved the opportunity for an- 
other tree-planting. Some years later the famous class of 
'73 planted a group of pines, one for each member, four 
of which are still living, I believe. They stand near the 
walk about half way up the hill. It was at the banquet 
at the close of this day's sport that the witty and ever 
ready Foster Backus spoke so eloquently of the time 
when his children's children might be permitted to come 
back and hitch their horses to the stump of the tree he 
had that day planted. So, almost without premeditation, 
the peculiarly local celebration of Tree Holiday grew up, 
long before the inauguration of our national Arbor Day." 

In the early days every student was expected to plant 
a tree each year. The Thelomathesian Society, the P. D. 
(later Beta Theta Pi), and the Browning Society (which 
became a chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma subsequently) 
also planted trees. Such a plan was necessary when the 
classes were so small and the campus almost absolutely 
bare; but as both the classes and the trees grew larger 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES IO9 

this system was changed. In 1887, instead of each stu- 
dent planting a tree, groups of three were formed for that 
purpose; later, the faculty requirement was removed al- 
together, and only class and society organizations kept up 
the custom. 

In the beginning the proceedings on Tree Holiday were 
quite informal. A regular program of exercises was first 
introduced in 1874, largely through the efforts of W. B. 
Gunnison, '75, and C. K. Gaines, 'j6. These exercises 
began with a Tree Holiday address in the chapel at 9 a.m. 
This was followed by the planting of trees, with various 
ceremonies, by the classes of both departments. In the 
afternoon came an enjoyable, but very unscientific, rough- 
and-tumble football game on the campus, one of which is 
elaborately celebrated in Homeric verse in the Gridiron 
of 1880. Later, baseball was more commonly played. 
The day ended with a formal banquet, at which appro- 
priate toasts were given and occasionally quite notable 
speeches made. 

The Tree Holiday of 1881 may be regarded as typical. 
In that year the day began with the exercises of the 
Browning Society, held on the campus at 4:30 a.m. It 
seems to have been one of their secrets why so early an 
hour was chosen. "Perhaps," says the reporter, "it was 
only to make their part in the exercises the more myste- 
rious; but when it is remembered that the young ladies 
did the planting themselves — and were reluctant, no 
doubt, to permit outsiders to see how gracefully they 
could handle a spade — the mystery is partly explained." 
The Betas had their tree planting at ten the following 
evening; and on one of these occasions it is recorded that 
they illuminated the scene with red strontium lights 
burned on an extemporized altar, as with impressive cere- 
monies they dedicated to the tree a can of the not in- 
odorous fertilizer known as "superphosphate." In the 



IIO SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

afternoon baseball was played instead of football. These 
games were sometimes between classes, but often between 
a college team and some similar organization in the vil- 
lage. 

There were always, however, interclass contests of a 
certain sort — not precisely what are called athletic 
sports, though of a decidedly athletic character. The 
rivalry between the two lower classes was not in those 
days displayed so actively as now in the fall, but was 
reserved, or rather restrained, until Tree Holiday. Under 
such conditions it doesn't require much imagination to 
picture the lively scrimmages that must have taken place, 
expecially as there was scarcely any upperclass super- 
vision. There were then no college publications, and few 
records of contests have been preserved, though some of 
the older alumni could doubtless relate thrilling experi- 
ences. There are, however, some newspaper reports in 
existence, the earliest of which relates to the Tree Holiday 
of 1880. At that time it seems that the Freshmen had 
so far forgotten their proper position in college as to wear 
"tiles" and carry canes. Of course the Sophomores made 
things lively for a time, but there were no casualities ex- 
cept to the hats (mainly borrowed for the occasion), most 
of which never made their appearance in public again. 
Indeed, it was noted that several of the local alumni im- 
mediately thereafter began wearing soft hats even on 
Sundays. 

The struggle between the two underclasses in the year 
'88 must have been even more strenuous, if the accounts of 
it are trustworthy. The class of '91, like most Freshman 
classes, had an eye for the artistic in color, and had 
draped the roof of Herring Library in vivid green. After 
finishing their work they remained on guard; and it was 
well they did, for at 2 a.m. the Sophomores came, well 
prepared for emergencies, being provided with ropes, lad- 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES III 

ders, and other implements for the assault of walls. In 
the morning, however, the green flag still waved in tri- 
umph from its pinnacle, and only the fragments of a lad- 
der remained to testify to the fierceness of the conflict. 
Indeed, these unregulated demonstrations tended more 
and more to develop extremes of bitterness and many 
objectionable features. In 1899 the following comment 
was made in The Laurentian: "If fraternal rites were 
performed they were outdone by those which have no 
fraternal sanction. " 

In 1892 the banquet, which previously had been held 
in the old college building, was transferred to the Haven 
House. Beginning with the year 1894, the banquet was 
omitted from the program. According to an account of 
the festivities in 1893, a large part of the ceremonies took 
place rather early in the day, and as will be seen by the 
following schedule, were of a highly mystical character. 

Beta Theta Pi Solemnities, 12:01 a.m. 
Alpha Tau Omega Rites, 12:03 A - M - 
Kappa Kappa Gamma Owletics, 3 :59 a.m. 
Kappa Kappa Gamma Gastronomies, 5:00 a.m. 
Delta Delta Delta Nocturnal Poseidonic 
Invocation, 3 103 a.m. 

Judging from the records left, these fraternal orgies 
were discontinued after 1894. In this year, also, a note- 
worthy variation from the usual class program appeared. 
The class of '96 had a very realistic old Roman funeral, 
at which with much solemnity they consigned to the 
funeral pyre "Sineg R. Adu," the name referring to the 
fact that, by vote of the faculty, members of the class 
had received no grades in a certain subject, but were 
passed sine gradu. William Hector Murray pronounced 
the oration, and the whole idea was admirably carried 



112 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

out, even to the presence of several extremely audible 
hired mourners. The next year the class of '97 brought 
forward the sequel in a parody from the ghost scene in 
Hamlet. Miss Emma Robinson was the playwright, and 
Miss Jessie Stearns (now Mrs. G. R. Hardie) played the 
ghost. 

In the early days all the classes of both departments 
gave programs, but later the class exercises were almost 
entirely limited to those held by the two underclasses of 
the college. Under this regime these exercises quickly 
lost the characteristic features of the earlier period. As 
on the occasions last described, the program consisted 
mainly in conceiving and carrying out some one clever 
idea. In devising these schemes there appears to have 
been no lack of originality, as any one may see by read- 
ing the accounts of Tree Holiday as published in The 
Laurentian from the date of its founding in 1888. For 
example, at the exercises in 1896 the Sophomores held a 
festival of trees. The trees represented the college classes; 
and some of course were extravagantly lauded and others 
the reverse. This was probably the beginning of the 
practice of caricaturing each other which the underclasses 
later adopted. In 1897 the Freshmen gave an operetta 
in three acts, entitled "The Galliant Sophomores"; while 
the Sophomores impersonated the faculty and held a 
mimic faculty meeting that elicited much applause. The 
next year, 1898, the underclassmen did nothing but cari- 
cature each other. For some years these underclass exer- 
cises had been becoming more and more the prominent 
feature, and this resulted in the slighting of the morning 
program in the chapel. This had usually consisted of an 
address by some well-known man, with college songs and 
other music. In 1898 scarcely any of the students at- 
tended the morning exercises, and in 1899 these were 
omitted. 



UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES II3 

In 1900, on the initiative of President Gunnison, then 
newly inaugurated, there was a partial revival of the 
style of exercises first associated with Tree Holiday; and 
in 1901, in pursuance of the suggestions of Professor C. K. 
Gaines, one of the original organizers of the day in the 
early seventies, there was a complete return to the origi- 
nal conception of Tree Holiday. According to the pro- 
gram the aim seemed to be to adorn the campus, to 
discover and utilize orators, and to furnish a legitimate 
outlet for class rivalry in the Sophomore-Freshman ball 
game. This memorable Tree Holiday was closed by a 
dance in the gymnasium, with President Gunnison as 
host. From the accounts published it must have been 
one of the most enjoyable Tree Holidays held since the 
early seventies. 

Soon, however, undesirable features again began to 
appear. The truth of the matter was, the need that 
prompted the establishment of the holiday had ceased to 
exist, and the interest now centered almost exclusively in 
Freshman-Sophomore rivalry. Preparations for the occa- 
sion engrossed the attention of these classes for days, 
sometimes weeks, beforehand, and the disorders attend- 
ant upon the day itself became more and more objec- 
tionable. In 1904 Tree Holiday was dropped from the 
official calendar. It continued to be observed, however, 
on petition from year to year, until in 1910 it was definitely 
abolished. 



1 14 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 



'NIVERSITT ST. LAWRENCE 

By Cammie Woods Gaines, '78. 

When, severed far from voice and view. 
In stranger lands we wander. 

We'll think of the companions true 
Who now work with us in the U- 
niversity St. Lawrence. 

We'll think the skies were always blue, 
Which now are arching o'er us; 

We'll think how fast those minutes flew 
Which now are passing at the U- 
niversity St. Lawrence. 

Here first our love of wisdom grew; 
Here learning first attracled: 

We struggled for it with the tu- 
tors and professors at the U- 
niversity St. Lawrence. 

And though we bid our world adieu, 

Forget its feuds and follies, 
One thing there is we ne'er shall do, — 
Forget to love our honored U- 
niversity St. Lawrence. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE AGE OF FABLE 

DIARY OF AN EARLY UNDERGRADUATE — A MIDNIGHT ES- 
CAPADE — TREE HOLIDAY REMINISCENCES — RHETORI- 
CALS — PLAIN LIVING — A RETROSPECT. 

THE narrative recounted in this book would give 
a very imperfect presentation of the first half- 
century of the life of the college did it not em- 
body, along with the record of the labors of the builders 
of the institution, some of the floating traditions of under- 
graduate life in those early days. Hence a few of these 
legends, told from time to time at banquet tables or in 
the light of fireplace logs by graduates with youthful 
hearts, though with whitened temples, are here set down 
to preserve for the coming generation the memory of a 
lively undercurrent which mingled colorfully with the 
larger flow of more serious events. With lapse of time 
these episodes are many of them passing into oblivion, 
while others seem, as seen through the mists of memory, 
to be taking on shapes more or less unreal. Among the 
actors may be dimly discerned the features of those whose 
sons and daughters are to be found in goodly numbers 
among the students of today. The compilers of this 
book cannot better aid in preserving this body of legends 
than by bringing together the reminiscences of some of 
the participants, recorded when the memory was still 
comparatively fresh and published in the earlier numbers 
of The Laurentian. 



Il6 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The following paragraphs were written by a member of 
the class of y j6 — who, however, was for some time asso- 
ciated with the class of '75. 

"Turning over the leaves of a diary which I had 
spasms of keeping during those years, I recall many 
things which had long been forgotten. And I find some 
things recorded which repeated perusals fail to bring to 
mind. Most of these things, whether remembered or not, 
it were well to forget, for I find that my diary was more 
a record of facts and events outside the class-room than 
of the theories and truths therein laid down. 

"If I may judge from my own book of chronicles, I 
was chiefly active in keeping to the fore the banner of 
whatever class or society I happened to be connected with. 
Under date of September 6, 1872, I find that the 'Sopho- 
more class, in which I average, met immediately after 
prayers and chose Gunnison captain/ The significance 
of this action 'immediately after prayers' is seen from an 
entry three days later: 'This day was noted for witness- 
ing the great game of ball between the Sophomore and 
Freshman classes, F/s winning by a score of thirteen to 
ten. Cost us twenty-one cents apiece to get them a new 
ball/ But we had our revenge, for under September 16 
I find this: 'Played the Fresh, beating them twenty-five 
to four, with two of our men to be put out/ With a 
confidence born of victory I find in the next day's entry 
that 'Gunnison bet Backus a dollar that he couldn't pick 
out eight men who could beat the Sophomores/ The 
next day (September 18) has this: 'Played ball, getting 
beat one tally/ From which I infer that Gunnison lost 
his dollar; it is not stated whether he handed it over to 
Backus, and I have no recollection either way. 

"Interspersed between accounts of organized endeavor 
are allusions to private and impromptu encounters. Octo- 
ber 17, 'Smith, Cheetham, and I were in McClusky's 



THE AGE OF FABLE II7 

room working in trigonometry. Gunnison came in, and 
being in an overbearing mood, we dragged him out by the 
heels, to the detriment of the peaceful routine of the 
Theological School and Doctor Fisher, underneath/ 

"On another day, 'Marshall Doolittle appeared with a 
new pair of boots on. Gunny and I noticed them as he 
turned the landing on the second floor. We asked him 
if they had ever been down. He said they had not, and 
never would till he wore them down. Overhauled him at 
the bend in the stairs. Gunnison got kicked in the 
stomach and barked his shin, and I had a coat sleeve 
torn out, and lost my collar and hat over the bannister, 
but we took his boots down to the second floor, and him 
too.' 

"On another occasion I got decidedly the worst of it. 
After Thelomathesian one night, six or eight of us lingered 
about the building; and when all was still and the theo- 
logues had gone to bed, we carried their organ up to the 
second floor and gave them a concert. The music was not 
of the sweetest, and we were soon aware, from the gath- 
ering voices on the third floor and the allusions to wood 
and water, that the whole force was nearly ready to de- 
scend upon us. I was officiating at the organ. The 
others finally saw that retreat must be quick it if was to 
be orderly, and dashed down the stairs in a bunch. I 
sought to follow, but the wood and water were too thick, 
and I retreated down the north hall, hoping things would 
soon quiet. But heads began to peer forth from the 
doors; a few gathered at the landing and were joined by 
others from above. Lamps were produced, and I was 
soon discovered. Now these same theologues had been 
annoyed on more than one occasion before in a similar 
way, and they had sworn (or affirmed) that they would 
resent any attempt to move their organ upstairs again 



Il8 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

without their leave. Blood was in their eyes. How I 
wished the boys would return! I wondered if they knew 
I hadn't escaped. Was it possible they had abandoned 
me? Every moment the water pails and pitchers got 
thicker about the landing. In another minute they would 
be upon me and pour water over me at their leisure. At 
this instant I heard the cry of the boys outside, increas- 
ing as though coming towards me. Now was my time. 
Nearest me was a fellow with a stick of wood, blocking 
the way. I rushed against him, wresting the stick from 
his hands, and with it broke the first pitcher tipped upon 
me, and ! 

"When I recovered consciousness I was lying on the 
table in Doctor Fisher's room, surrounded by the boys. 
They had turned back as soon as they missed me, and had 
reached the front door just in time to see me fall at the 
foot of the stairs. I remember only a reckless leap from 
the top stair and the glint of a ball-club thrown from the 
floor above. I felt nothing, but the boys found a cut in 
the top of my head, which had to be mended at home. 

"Then as now, elections were planned for in advance. 
The Thelomathesian afforded most of the fat offices. 
While the presidency was the principal prize, no society 
or clique ever aimed at anything less than electing the 
whole ticket. Precedent favored the selection of a Senior 
for president, but attempts were frequently made to elect 
from a lower class. Very often a first ballot would show 
a Junior in the lead, but the scattering votes would nearly 
always go to the Senior and elect him on the second or 
third ballot. This method of defeat was practiced upon 
me during my first Junior year. 

"The spring election in 1875 was the most spirited 
contest I remember. A complete ticket was nominated 
a week in advance by an 'informal committee/ On the 
Wednesday preceding the meeting this ticket was, with 



THEAGEOFFABLE II9 

proper management, adopted by the Junior class. But 
while the support of that class was most valuable, the 
publicity involved had the effect of at once antagonizing 
a large number. It was charged that there was a 'ring'; 
it must be broken. The opposition captured the Fresh- 
man class, which was an unusually large one. February 
18 (Thursday) I have this: 'Contest getting lively. Fresh- 
men are going to fight. They held class meeting, at 
which nineteen were present. Nominated a ticket com- 
plete. Wormed out of one Fresh what it was, as follows: 
President, M. Doolittle; Vice-president, L. P. Hale; 
Secretary, Bessie Weeks; Treasurer, Peck; 2nd member 
committee, Bugbee; 3d member, .... Went down to 
Charley's and consulted. In the hope that Smith could 
be won over to the opposition, or at least made less 
active for the regular ticket, Doolittle was dropped and 
Smith put in his place for President.' 

"Friday morning couriers were dispatched and tele- 
grams sent to bring the faithful from the uttermost parts 
of the county. The following is verbatim from my diary 
for Friday, February 19: 'Memorable day! Regular elec- 
tion of officers for Thelomathesian Society. Worked all 
day long; canvassed, looked up constitution, by-laws, 
Cushing's Manual, etc., etc. We were apprehensive when 
a demand was made for a meeting at 5 p.m., and thought 
the object to be, as it was, the election of members be- 
fore the election of officers; but when the meeting came 
it was simply moved to put off election of officers for 
one month — clearly out of order, and so declared by the 
Vice-president (Smith), who was in the chair. I went 
down home with Gaines to prepare for final encounter. 
The meeting was called to order by Smith. After the 
journal was read the order of Election of Officers came. 
A regular ballot-box had been obtained, and a motion 
was made that it be used. This prevailed, and the tellers 



120 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

were appointed, one from each party, — Cheetham and 
Robinson. The vote all knew would be close. When the 
ballot was closed and the votes were being counted you 
could have * picked up a pin/ Then came the announce- 
ment: 'Thirty-six votes cast, of which Mr. Gunnison 
receives nineteen, Mr. Smith, seventeen. Mr. W. B. Gun- 
nison is our next President.' But close upon this came a 
demand from McClusky that another vote be taken, with 
the assertion that there were not so many voters in the 
room, that one of their party had not voted, etc. This 
was ruled out of order, and the Secretary, Miss Hill, called 
the roll of members. Thirty-six answered present. This 
settled the matter and the balloting proceeded. The next 
was Vice-president, for which I was supposed to be the 
opposition candidate, but the support was generally given 
to the regular candidate, J. C. Lee. Our entire ticket — 
President, Gunnison; Vice-president, Lee; Secretary, Bessie 
Weeks; Treasurer, Sharp; 2nd member committee, Cleave- 
land; 3rd member, Cheetham — was carried with the ex- 
ception of Treasurer, which office was given to Peck.' 

'With one more extract from my diary I close it and 
lock it away. 

"'Saturday, September 4, 1875. Jim White stayed 
with me last night. About midnight we heard an alarm 
of fire, — the fire-bell, court-house and Methodist church 
bells, the engine bells; and the whole village, as with one 
lung, yelled fire. From our window the entire college 
seemed ablaze. We dressed in haste and, like about four 
hundred others, ran to the hill. The college was not on 
fire. We were deceived. The firemen, Poste among them, 
had dragged the engine, hose, and hook and ladder cart 
to the foot of the hill. They were mad.'" 

The occurrence next related also took place in the 
seventies, but at a later date. The tale is told by one of 
the participants in the adventure. 



THE AGE OF FABLE 121 

"My only objedl in writing this story is that a true 
statement of a certain exploit may go on record. The 
disposition to magnify and exaggerate the doings of un- 
dergraduates is so common that I deem it proper to state 
the facts concerning a foolhardy scrape that some of our 
classmates were involved in. The occurrence would hardly 
merit this attention were it not that a large element of 
danger entered into it. What turned out to be a ridicu- 
lously foolish proceeding might have ended tragically. As 
the affair was nothing to be especially proud of, I refrain 
from giving the names of the principal participants. 

"It was the night before Thanksgiving in our Sopho- 
more year. We were to have a vacation of several 
days, and it was not surprising, perhaps, that a proposi- 
tion to go on a lark met with ready response. I think it 
was at the post-office, while waiting for the distribution 
of the evening mail, that three members of our class and 
a grave and dignified theologue — a former classmate, by 
the way — met quite accidentally, and without previous 
thought on the sub j eel: concluded to go forthwith to the 
college building and if possible have a little fun. It was 
suggested by one of the party that it would be a capital 
joke to * smoke out' some of the theologues. This met 
with favor, and the party stopped at Brewer's grocery store 
and purchased four large clay pipes with long stems, and 
a quantity of rank tobacco. Arriving at the college they 
made their first call upon Ure Mitchell, a young student 
from Scotland. Mr. Mitchell received his visitors with 
some apprehension, but did his best to be hospitable. 
When the party had entered one of the number took the 
precaution to lock the door and hide the key. After a 
few words had passed the pipes were produced, and the 
process of filling the room with smoke began. Mitchell 
was evidently very much surprised at this proceeding, but 
he said nothing. We (I may as well admit that I was one 



122 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

of the number) had been in the room but a short time 
when it became known through the building that we 
were there on mischief bent. Theologue Barnes, of Dick 
Deadeye fame, was the first to take notice of us. Finding 
that he could not enter the room he began to barricade 
the door, and was soon assisted by other students. For a 
time we enjoyed the situation. Mitchell remained stolid 
and indifferent. The volume of smoke increased and be- 
came so dense that we could almost cut it. One by one 
we stopped smoking, as we became painfully aware that 
we, and not our would-be victim, were sick. We could 
not escape by the door, and the windows offered no means 
of safe exit. To add to our misery and chagrin, the 
theologues in the hall were having much sport at our 
expense, besides indulging in many uncomplimentary re- 
marks. Mitchell showed no signs of being sick — we did. 
"At length the barricade was removed, and we rushed 
out determined to have revenge. We went at once to 
Dick Deadeye's room on the top floor and sought an in- 
terview. He declined to see us and his door was locked. 
We then concluded to try the barricade business our- 
selves, with perhaps a few improvements. Wood-boxes 
and benches and chairs from class-rooms were produced 
and stacked up in front of the door. A rotten pumpkin 
was obtained and portions of it found their way through 
the transom; also a considerable quantity of water. In 
the midst of our hilarity word came to us that the Presi- 
dent was coming up the stairs. There was no opportu- 
nity to leave the building. It would not do to be caught 
with the evidence of our guilt upon us, and in great des- 
peration we earnestly besought Theologue Gregory to give 
us the use of his room until the storm passed over. This 
he did, and we locked ourselves in, put out the light, and 
impatiently awaited results. Soon we heard a well-known 
voice at the other end of the hall. It was a demand for 



THE AGE OF FABLE I23 

admittance at the door of the Beta Theta Pi chapter 
room. Then came an order to the Steward to fetch an 
ax. We were greatly disturbed by this order, but what 
could we do? No barbarian had ever been within the 
sacred portals of Beta Zeta Hall, and now a score of 
curious theologues stood ready to enter the moment the 
door was opened. We alone could prevent the intrusion. 
We did not have the moral courage to do so. A few 
blows and the door gave way. The President alone 
glanced in, and then considerately fastened the door and 
prevented others from entering. We felt a moment of 
relief, which was soon dispelled, however, when we heard 
the investigating party coming directly toward our room. 
Admittance was demanded. There was no response. I 
never was more scared in my life. One of our heroic 
band was under the bed, two were in the closet, and only 
one — the theologue — sat quietly in a rocking chair, 
ready to face the music and thinking what could be said 
in defense when the door should be opened. For some 
unaccountable reason the door was not opened. The 
Steward's huge bunch of keys was brought into service, 
but to no purpose. It being a private room, and there 
being some doubt, perhaps, that the culprits were within, 
the ax was not used. The President finally withdrew, 
having given an order, which we heard, that the Steward 
should guard the door until we came out. The Steward, 
armed with a big stick and accompanied by his ferocious 
dog, stood sentinel. 

"We dubiously discussed the situation. We were 
unanimously of the opinion that we did not wish a tussle 
with the dog, and furthermore an exit by the door meant 
a practical surrender and probable expulsion from the 
college. We felicitated ourselves that up to the present 
time our names were not known to the authorities. It 
had not occurred to us that possibly some outraged the- 



124 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ologue might have made damaging disclosures. Fearing 
extreme punishment if found out and buoyed up by the 
hope of escape, we were ready to take any chances. If 
we could procure a rope escape was possible. We knew 
that there was a clothes-line back of the college. It did 
not occur to us that it might be weather-worn and rotten. 
Tying the bed-clothes together and attaching a weight, 
we managed about midnight to tap on the window of the 
room below, occupied by Messrs. Percy and Chapman, 
and succeeded in conveying to them the desire we had 
for the Steward's clothes-line. In a few moments we had 
the rope and joyfully began our descent. We made one 
end fast to a bed slat which we placed across the win- 
dow — and in such a way, as I now remember, that it 
was quite liable to slip out. The lightest of our number, 
with many misgivings, started first on the perilous trip. 
It has been generally supposed that we slid down the rope 
the entire distance from the third story to the ground. 
Such was not the case. Big, generous Lamphear, a theo^ 
logue whom we all liked, was taken into the secret, and 
from the room beneath us he reached far out of the 
window to grasp us as we came down. Never was I 
so glad to be embraced by any one as when Lamphear 
pulled me into the room. So quietly had we taken our 
departure that neither the Steward nor his dog was the 
wiser. 

" From the second story we were lowered to the ground 
by means of the rope, carefully managed by Lamphear. 
The last trip was too much for the rotten hemp, and one 
of our number fell a distance of about ten feet, causing no 
harm but suggesting fearful casualties had the accident 
happened earlier in the game. We hurried to our re- 
spective homes, congratulating ourselves that we had got 
out of a bad scrape very nicely. We employed various 
devices to enter our homes without disturbing the inmates 



THE AGE OF FABLE 125 

and thus producing criminating evidence. Two of our 
number reached their rooms by means of a ladder. 

"The next morning we were prepared to thoroughly 
enjoy Thanksgiving. We felt that we had something to 
be thankful for. We had not indulged in these senti- 
ments very long when each one of us received a letter 
addressed in a well-known hand which read as follows: 

"St. Lawrence University, Canton, Nov. 29, 1877. 
"Mr.X: 

"You are hereby asked to appear before the Faculty 
at the College, at 10 o'clock a.m., Monday, December 3, 
1877, to answer for the rioting in the college building last 
night. If in the meantime you have anything to offer 
why judgment should not be pronounced against you, and 
why the case should not be brought before the civil mag- 
istrate, you had better call on me and communicate the 
same. 

"P. S. — Witnesses say that Mr. Y was with you in 
these disorderly proceedings. I give him no summons 
because he belongs to the Theological School, and his 
case will be referred to Doctor Fisher. 

"It goes without saying that none of us enjoyed our 
Thanksgiving dinner. In the afternoon we called upon 
President Gaines, as suggested, made a clean breast of 
the whole affair, and asked such consideration as the 
offense would permit. To our surprise the punishment 
was much lighter than we expected, and probably less 
than we deserved. We readily consented to repair all 
damage done to furniture. We were also required to pay 
the Steward a certain sum of money as recompense for 
loss of a night's sleep while guarding Gregory's room. At 
first we objected strenuously to this demand, but to no 
purpose. The edict was final. Our theological conspira- 



126 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

tor, who was taken before the head of the Theological 
School, was so impressed with the injustice of this demand 
that he hesitated for several days whether to pay the 
money or leave the school. Good sense finally prevailed, 
and he pocketed his pride and came down with his dollar 
as we had done. It might be well to add that it was 
nearly eight o'clock in the morning when the faithful 
sentinel discovered that there was no one in the room, 
and that there was a rope hanging from the window 
which might explain some matters. It would hardly do 
to publish what was said when the discovery was made. 
As we had not asked any one to sit up all night watching 
us we felt that there could be no valid claim for recom- 
pense, especially for the time consumed in watching an 
empty room. 

"In the afternoon, immediately after our interview, 
we went to the college for the purpose of repairing broken 
benches, etc. We were met at the door by the Steward, 
who refused us admittance. We discussed the matter at 
some length, to the amusement of several students, and 
were finally obliged to ask the official to accompany us 
to the home of the President to satisfy himself that we 
had authority to enter the building. I shall never forget 
what the kind-hearted Doctor said to the Steward when 
his mission was made known. 'Go back to the college/ 
he said, 'and let these gentlemen in, and I will be re- 
sponsible for their actions/ And so the episode closed.'' 

The remarks which follow are from a Tree Holiday 
address delivered in 1900 by one of the alumni. 

"The real college traditions of St. Lawrence are just 
about as old as the trees on the college campus. The 
hill was very bare of both when I first saw it. Both 
grew slowly on our rather barren soil, and at times even 
seemed in danger of extermination; but everything that 
survived was robust and firmly rooted. Now, from the 



THE AGE OF FABLE 127 

bare sticks we planted, our sandy campus has become a 
grove, every tree with a personal history; and few col- 
leges, even those of much greater age, are richer in student 
folk-lore. 

"And just here let me remark, — we are accustomed 
to think of St. Lawrence as a very young college; yet if 
we should divide all the colleges in the land into two 
equal classes, the old and the new, St. Lawrence would 
be found to stand well back among the older colleges. 
Of the colleges in this State she is older than Vassar, 
older than Syracuse, older than Cornell. Her brick walls 
have stood for half a century, and they are already 
thickly coated with the moss and lichen of tradition. 
To this Tree Holiday has made its contributions. 

"The class of '8o had entered with unusually large 
numbers, but a big fraction dropped out before gradua- 
tion. When we marched up the hill on the morning of 
Tree Holiday, 1880, we were astonished to see a small 
graveyard at a little distance from the walk. It con- 
sisted of about a dozen neat bass-wood slabs, one for 
every member of the class who had fallen by the wayside. 
These monuments were adorned with the usual cherubs, 
weeping willows, etc., done in marking ink, and all bore 
appropriate inscriptions, some of them in verse. It was 
really a very clever performance, and it is said that Her- 
bert Gunnison and John Heaton spent considerable brain 
energy upon it. A few years ago some of the slabs were 
still in existence, but most of the obituary notices upon 
them were too pungently personal for publication. 

"In some cases the tree-planting was turned to unex- 
pectedly practical uses. At one time the college Steward 
had arrogated to himself a road straight down to the 
gate close by the main walk, and his wagon wheels were 
cutting deep ruts and his horses' hoofs destroying the 
turf of the campus. To some of us this seemed highly 



128 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

improper — as indeed it was — and we resolved to stop 
the sacrilege. So Nelson Robinson and I conspired to- 
gether and swore a regular Greek-letter fraternity oath 
that we would plant trees in that roadway every Tree 
Holiday until the track was blocked. And plant them 
there we did, year after year. I don't know how many 
trees we sacrificed in reclaiming that strip of desert sand. 
If live trees weren't handy we planted dead ones, and 
planted them good and strong. Anyhow, in the end we 
established our blockade and saved the campus — that 
was our view of it, at least. But perhaps our point of 
view was too much like that of the class which tossed 
down about half a cord of wood from the third story 
windows into the Steward's flower garden, actuated by a 
patriotic conviction that there ought to be no flower-beds 
on the college campus. Frank Cleaveland and Doctor 
J. C. Willson, I think, had a hand in that. The zeal of 
the student reformer is often indiscreet. The boys pre- 
vailed so far as the flower-beds were concerned; but it 
didn't pay, because they had to carry back the wood. 
It was characteristic of the students that they always 
obeyed orders, though they sometimes disobeyed rules. 
For example they sometimes hoisted a green flag in for- 
bidden places, but they promptly hauled it down again 
when so commanded by those having authority. 

"One of the most dramatic episodes of Tree Holiday 
was the spectacular reappearance of the shield of the 
class of '82, in which Lawson Carter Rich was the moving 
spirit. It was the custom in those days for each class to 
erect a decoration in the dining hall, and in their Sopho- 
more year the decoration set up by the class of '82 was 
a shield, elaborately ornamented with the class date and 
other emblems. This shield, by some mischance by no 
means accidental, was subsequently taken down, not by 
its owners, but by the Freshmen; and '82 considered life 



THEAGEOFFABLE 1 29 

hardly worth living unless that shield could be recovered. 
Recovered it was, at last, by a series of detective opera- 
tions worthy of Sherlock Holmes at his best — but that 
is quite another story. Suffice to say that the recovery 
was managed so adroitly that the '83 men had no sus- 
picion that the stolen shield was not still in its hiding 
place. When the Tree Holiday banquet of 1882 was held, 
the decorations of the Senior class were quite peculiar. 
They were placed in front of a window, and in the middle 
appeared a blank space about the size and shape of the 
missing shield. This looked very much as if the class 
had expected to recover the shield and had failed, and 
many jokes were cracked at their expense. At last the 
orator of the class of '82 was called upon by the toast- 
master. In his speech he led up very skillfully to the 
story of the theft and recovery — the last a thunderbolt 
out of a clear sky to the '83 men, who thought that their 
booty was still resting in a certain dark closet adjoining 
the rooms of their classmate, Frank Post — and at the 
critical moment, raised by an artful arrangement of pul- 
leys, the lost shield crept slowly up into the vacant place. 
Then there was cheering. Nobody could resist. 

"The classes were always racking their brains to in- 
vent something new. On another occasion a captured 
shield was burned on a funeral pyre in the lower part of 
the campus, with classical solemnities and a strong body- 
guard. The class of '87, tired of trees, decided to plant 
a stone. They thought it quite as likely to grow and 
more likely to stand; but in this last they were reckoning 
without their host. The hole was dug the evening be- 
fore, and beside it rested the stone, elaborately carved by 
a mason's chisel and weighing nearly a ton. In the 
morning, however, no stone was visible. With the help 
of hostile hands it had rolled away during the night, and 
was found some weeks later in a neighboring barnyard. 



I30 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

But the class of '87, nowise daunted, hastily prepared 
and planted another monumental boulder, not quite so 
big, which may still be seen near the library cross-walk, 
almost buried under the encroaching sod. For it was al- 
ways a point of honor — one of the rules of the game — 
that nothing once planted should ever afterwards be dis- 
turbed. 

"Trivial as much of it may seem, these things were a 
great factor in student life and show well the spirit of 
the past. The students of St. Lawrence were brim full of 
enthusiasm, enterprise, and invention. Their energies 
were often more or less misdirected, but the spirit was 
always right. The whole tone was hearty and wholesome. 
Between classes the feeling often ran high, but there was 
no real animosity. There was some overstepping of 
bounds, but little real lawlessness. The relation between 
students and faculty was almost ideal. We were all the 
best of friends; we were all devoted to St. Lawrence." 

As related in the preceding chapter, the old chapel 
saw many other gatherings than those for chapel exercises. 
In it the classes also held the "rhetoricals" that in those 
days were a part of the course in English. It was on 
such an occasion that the classes of '94 and '95 once es- 
sayed to instruct Professor Henry Priest how to run these; 
whereupon Professor Priest showed '94 and '95 that their 
advice was not needed. "It had been announced," says 
our informant, "that, owing to the increased size of the 
classes, the Freshman and Sophomore classes would hold 
their exercises separately; formerly all four classes had 
held joint exercises. When the appointed day for '94 
arrived, '95 conceived the bright idea of attending and 
listening. So at three o'clock the class marched into the 
chapel, along with the Sophomores, and sat down — 
anent which '94 held a hurried meeting, soon broken off 
by the arrival of Professor Priest, who was to have charge. 



THE AGE OF FABLE 131 

'E. R. Barrows' was the first name called. Barrows got 
up, but instead of going to the platform told the Dean 
that the members of the class had decided to speak only 
after the Freshman class had been sent from the room. 

"'Very well,' said the Dean, 'go out.' 

"Barrows went. Butrick, if memory serves, was next, 
and he went out. By the time three or four more had 
left, '95 found that it wasn't so much fun as it might be. 
So a member of the class struggled to his feet and told 
Professor Priest that, rather than make trouble for '94, 
*95 would leave. But the Professor's response to this was 
quite as short and quite as emphatic as it had been to 
Barrows' pronouncement. 

'"Sit down,' said the Dean. 

"All the members of '94 except three stuck by the 
class vote and left the room. They made the work up 
later, it is needless to say." 

Once each term the students were allowed to have a 
"College Dance." This dance began at eight and ended 
at twelve, with no extension. Hired musicians were not 
allowed; the girls furnished the music, playing the piano 
in turn. A member of the faculty was always present. 
These dances were abandoned after 1891. 

There was no Faculty Room in the early days. The 
present Faculty Room was then used for recitation pur- 
poses — with blackboards and an enormous stove. Fac- 
ulty meetings were commonly held at the houses of the 
professors, usually with refreshments to follow, — and 
the students were able to tell the next day, in one or two 
cases at least, whether the supper had agreed with the 
teacher or not. On the morning after a faculty meeting 
Professor Baker would make his appearance in the read- 
ing-room, bearing in his hand a bundle of petitions with 
"Granted" or "Refused" written in his fine hand on the 
back of each. 



132 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The facilities afforded by the junction of two small 
rivers, and the long Stillwater on the larger stream, have 
made boating a favorite amusement for St. Lawrence 
students almost from the beginning. Yet up to about 
1872 Little River was almost bare of boat-houses, though 
an occasional punt could be hired or borrowed. Nelson 
Robinson, C. K. Gaines, J. C. Lee, and a few others 
owned boats in the early seventies. In 1877 Herbert 
Gunnison, Witherbee, and Heaton, all of '8o, brought 
home from Alexandria Bay a tremendously long and heavy 
St. Lawrence skiff, fast and steady, but unsuitable to the 
river. The establishment in Canton of Rushton's factory 
later helped the boating interest immensely. By 1880 a 
veritable fleet of canoes and row-boats floated on these 
quiet waters. Then the "Pathfinder" appeared — the first 
steamer — a heavy skow, propelled by an old cheese- 
factory engine and a stern paddle-wheel not quite so fast 
as a man could walk. Many excursions were made on 
this craft, but its habit of running aground always made 
the return a matter of deep uncertainty. In the smaller 
boats there were many adventures, with now and then a 
"spill"; but happily no serious accident ever occurred. 
Indeed, the majority of these North Country boys were 
skillful boatmen. 

On the part of many alumni admiration for the present 
equipment of the University is not unmingled with a kind 
of whimsical regret over the vanishing conditions of the 
earlier years. Says one: 

"The 'real old fellows' have recorded the gold and 
bronze of those dawning days in their after-dinner talks, 
there to glow evermore, as cheerful and heart-warming as 
the open log fires that belonged to that pre-stove period 
of our history. Tough-fibred men, intellectual mountain- 
movers, grew up under the pruning hook of that early 
and esteemed poverty. The Williamsburgh Bridge, set 



THE AGE OF FABLE 133 

by Leffert Buck astride the murky, mile-wide East River 
on its huge feet and buttressed legs of bolted steel and 
stone, is typical of the class of rugged ideals that were 
conceived at St. Lawrence when the college waxed its 
foreign shoots of book learning into that vigorous stock. 

"In the eighties a turning point arrived in the history 
of the college, if we look to the fashion-plates of that day 
for historical data as the playwrights do. In 1888 there 
was only one dress suit in Canton. I saw it; I was per- 
sonally acquainted with the man who wore it to the Beta 
Ball held in November of that year. The V-shaped cor- 
sage of that swallow-tail may be regarded by the historian 
as an entering wedge. Today (1908) there are over thirty 
automobiles in Canton. One of the most serious charges 
that has been whispered to me by a pining alumnus is, in 
brief, this: Professor Henry Priest actually owns and op- 
erates an automobile, and uses it to run to his old home 
in Vermont now and then to spend a week-end. When- 
ever I think of this I think of the fall of the Roman 
Empire. Professor Priest at a week-end! and in his own 
automobile! 

"No miracle equal to the material achievements of 
these years can be cited by any historian reviewing any 
other twenty per cent of a century's history. Tele- 
phones, electric lights, and steam heat trip the unwary 
and block the way. Cement walks, paint, varnish, 
brass beds, white enamel, hard wood finish, and fur- 
niture polish are everywhere radioactive. The tin bath- 
tub with its enormous spatter-catch rim has been laid 
away in the attic, there to ripen in price for the an- 
tique collector. The chapter houses feed the sons of 
Lucullus to curvilinear outlines at an advanced cost of 
many per cent for the raw material. 

"Is there no process whereby we can restore our lost 
poverty? It is a vital question to scores of middle-aged 



134 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

alumni who have automobiled back to St. Lawrence look- 
ing for the old benches, anticipating the cosy pleasure of 
sinking, soft-tired, into their whittled upholstery. More- 
over, the numerous changes have destroyed the stage set- 
ting of many a coeducational romance. One alumnus 
who files regrets under this head told me a few days ago 
that the place would never look the same to him again. 
I am not sure whether he was sighing or trying to keep 
his cigar lighted, but he said nothing about the girl." 

The following is the way the early years look now to 
an alumnus whose life since graduation has been passed 
in surroundings very different from those of the academic 
life which he describes. 

"There is a common and convenient lie which I, for 
one, shall not repeat, wherewith parents and elders are 
wont to soften the asperities of castor oil and conic sec- 
tions to childhood and youth. 'Ah, you are having your 
happiest days now — I wish I might be young again,' 
say the old humbugs, self-deceived and really meaning 
what they say usually, but humbugs none the less. I do 
not wish to be a child again, nor even an undergraduate 
at St. Lawrence. Yet I can never cease to be glad that I 
was born and 'raised' on the brow of a wind-swept hill 
with space all about and the sky above, rather than in 
town; and that I spent some unhurried and unanxious 
years on that other hill which you all know and love. 
Where better could one pass through and have done with 
the first and worst of the seven ages? 

"Willingly I confess to remembering least vividly of 
St. Lawrence experiences the lessons I learned there from 
text-books. I remember best the Greek and Latin, in 
which I was least proficient, and I remember writing out 
an egregiously asinine 'Junior Ex* oration on free will 
four or more times, because I was too obstinate to mend 
its errors when the patient President pointed them out. 



THE AGE OF FABLE I35 

I remember getting several 'perfect' grade marks which I 
didn't deserve, and thinking nothing about it; and also 
the fuss I made about a single 'perfect' mark which I 
had earned and didn't get. I remember surveying with 
my father and Professor Squires a piece of land with 
seventeen sides, no right angle, a river along a portion of 
it, and iron ore in one corner to deflect the compass needle. 
I remember that the angle of incidence is equal to the 
angle of reflection because there is a tin roof just below 
the window where my office desk stands, and the sun 
shines there in August. But I couldn't say 'Barbara, 
Celarent,' or find the differential of any power of a vari- 
able to save my neck; and — keep it to yourself, please — 
I don't care. 

"The value of a college course lies most in the per- 
sonal influences one profits by at college, next in books, 
leisure, and incidental opportunities for culture, next in 
the wise increase of bodily powers by exercise, and next, 
perhaps, in studies. This should be the normal order of 
precedence with the industrious and the fortunate who 
do not neglect either their studies or their other oppor- 
tunities. Personal influences were exceedingly good in 
my day, and are yet at St. Lawrence. To have sat in 
class-room day after day and heard President Gaines talk 
of metaphysics and ethics is better than a big library on 
these subjects, because one profits by the recollection of 
the man as well as the teaching. To have seen even a 
very little of a moral giant like Doctor Ebenezer Fisher 
is precious enough now to all of us old boys, who will 
never have a chance to see a greater man, though greater 
names are familiar enough. Then there were the other 
professors, whom we liked, profited by, and plagued in 
varying proportions. 

"Last and most important of all, there were the boys 
and girls themselves. I declare there never was such a 



I36 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

company. I have a newspaperman's wide acquaintance 
with big and little folks, and have enjoyed exceptional 
opportunities for comparison, and I say with the utmost 
of deliberate emphasis that the St. Lawrence people were 
the best I have ever known. Circumstances have per- 
mitted me to know some of the old boys and girls pretty 
well now, and they are still among the best people I 
know, — along with a very few others who really deserve 
to have seen St. Lawrence but missed that crowning 
felicity. It was as near an ideal society as I expect to 
see. We of the sterner sex had few bad habits. We 
were abstainers from 'hot and rebellious liquors/ un- 
poisoned by tobacco, kept good hours and sang and 
danced a great deal. It is hard for a person who sings 
and dances to be very bad, though some succeed by 
efforts worthy a better application. The town society 
at that time, as I remember it, was absurdly and ex- 
travagantly dressy, but there was none of that nonsense 
in the school. We bought clothes for use not show, and 
wore them honestly out. The swallow-tail coat laid not 
its devastating hand upon us. (Is that a mixed meta- 
phor or only an ordinary bull? I'm sure I don't know.) 
I hope it has not yet. If it ever does, I hope the first 
offender will be beaten full sore with clubs for the good 
of old St. Lawrence. I blush to state that I owned one 
pair of white kids, and only wish my record on that point 
were more satisfactory. We had little money, which was 
very fortunate. Some of us worked in hay time and 
taught school winters, both very valuable elements in 
our education. What pranks, what mock trials, what 
maple sugar feasts, what Gargantuan oyster bowls, what 
aids to indigestion, what singing bouts! I declare I often 
wonder why we behaved as well as we did. 

"Youth is vain, and we grew conceited in spite of fre- 
quent exposures of our folly; and the world, which will 



THE AGE OF FABLE I37 

stand almost anything but the 'big-head/ has had some 
trouble to flog it out of us. Some of us have never quite 
been cured; and I, for one, have not yet done declaring 
that St. Lawrenceites are the salt of the limited portion 
of the earth which they savor." 



I38 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

JAM DIES CARPTI 

By Charles Kelsey Gaines, '76, for fraternity reunion in Syracuse, 1891. 

No other days are like the college days: 

Our days of freshest youth, of morning light, 

When — as the arclic sun with lifting rays 

Circles the glowing sky from morn till night, 

Nor sinks, but mounts yet higher and shines more bright — 

Whole years were sunrise, and the pressing hours 

Still showed the world more wide from Alma Mater's towers. 

No other days are like the college days: 

I ever grieve that mine are fled so long; 

And in my soul the college cries still raise 

Tumultuous echoes; and a college song, 

In riotous nonsense ringing loud, is strong 

To lift, one instant, all the weight of years; 

Then, as the cadence falls, comes age, and with it, tears. 

No other days are like the college days: 
Their sorest troubles we recount with mirth; 
And all that we remember of the frays 
7 hat once with tumult shook our little earth, 
Are but the friendships that in strife had birth; 
For oft the bitterest feuds of college strife 
Knit stoutest bonds of union in our after life. 

No other days are like the college days: 

Even our college scrapes have such a charm 

We glorify them ever, to amaze 

The callow generation, and alarm 

Their rivalry, who never dreamed of harm 

In staid and veteran founders, such as we, — 

Tet the same tunes by them full soon will chanted be. 



THE AGE OF FABLE I39 

No other days are like the college days: 

And there's no nation like a college state: 

That keen democracy, whose frankness flays 

Pretence; where wit and worth alone have weight; 

Where brainless money scarce can win a mate. 

Turbulent, restless, loyal to the core, — 

No sounder, truer hearts are found th.e whole world o'er. 

No other days are like the college days: 

No other friends are like old college mates, 

Forgotten never; though our 'parting ways 

Lead to the ends of the earth; old college hates 

Are calls to friendship now; fiercest debates 

Have left no sting; on the most hostile Greek 

A hearty 'shake* is all our direst wrath would wreak. 



CHAPTER X 
FRATERNITIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES 

THE P. D. SOCIETY — ALPHA SIGMA CHI — BETA THETA PI — 
THE BROWNINGS — KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA AND ZETA PHI 

ALPHA TAU OMEGA — DELTA DELTA DELTA — PHI 

BETA KAPPA — PHI SIGMA KAPPA — CHI ZETA SIGMA — 
OMEGA GAMMA SIGMA AND PI BETA PHI. 

THE first secret society organized at St. Lawrence, 
so far as is now known, was "The Five Lyres" 
(commonly rendered "Liars") in 1871. The 
original Lyres (thought by many to justify the popular 
version of their name) were Leslie A. Lee, '72, Foster L. 
Backus, '73, Charles L. Simmons, '73 Fremont W. Spicer, 
'73, and Walter B. Gunnison, '75 — the last named, who 
came to St. Lawrence in the fall of 1871, being the in- 
stigator of the enterprise. They had their mysteries of 
course, one of which was that each of the five fingers, in- 
cluding the thumb, represented one of the members. The 
symbolic lyres were arranged in a quincunx, and the cen- 
tral lyre, usually figured in scarlet, was understood to 
represent the thumb. Much discussion arose later as to 
who was the "scarlet liar," but those who knew never 
betrayed their secret. The main purpose of this 
confederation was to secure a chapter of some national 
Greek-letter fraternity, but before much had been ac- 
complished, all the Lyres except W. B. Gunnison had 
departed tagged with their respective degrees; some 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I4I 

years later they were incorporated with P. D. as graduate 
members. 

THE P. D. SOCIETY 

Walter Gunnison thus became the connecting link be- 
tween the Five Lyres and the subsequent organization 
which finally became a chapter of Beta Theta Pi. Thus 
far his plans had failed, and he stood quite alone — for 
at that time few at St. Lawrence had ever given a thought 
to Greek-letter fraternities; but to one of his tempera- 
ment this was but an incitement to livelier effort. During 
the summer of 1873 he had interested C. K. Gaines, '76, 
in an attempt to construct a racing shell (which was 
finally launched, but never could be kept right side up), 
and while they were working together he confided his 
larger plans to his partner, who entered into the project 
with great zeal. Four more men were selected, and as soon 
as college opened in the fall the six organized the P. D., a 
society in part literary, but having the same ultimate pur- 
pose as the Five Lyres and displaying much more energy 
in its pursuit. Through the kind offices of President 
Gaines, they obtained a lease of a lofty apartment 
(whence the cry 01 Ovpavioi with which they hailed each 
other) occupying part of the space now included in Pro- 
fessor Rebert's ledlure room on the third floor of Rich- 
ardson Hall. This place had been used for the storage of 
all manner of antiquated apparatus — electrical machines, 
bell-jars, and the like — and their first task was to 
clean it out; an old song relates how "they carried 
the instruments out one by one, the air-pump first 
and the herbarium." They then closed the entrance 
with a massive door studded with boltheads, behind 
which they began to hold secret sessions which it is still 
a joy to the participants to remember, but that are not 
for the public. 



142 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The original P. D.'s were W. B. Gunnison, '75, C. K. 
Gaines, '76, L. A. Doolittle, '75, M. E. Doolittle, '75, 
A. A. Smith, '75, and L. P. Hale, 'j6. The first new 
member admitted was J. C. Lee, 'j6; the second, F. N. 
Cleaveland, 'jj; soon after came N. L. Robinson, f jj; 
and other names of note quickly appear on the list. It is 
safe to say that this society comprised a remarkable body 
of men; and great has been their service to St. Lawrence, 
both then and later, for little in the subsequent history of 
the college has been done without their active participa- 
tion. They at once developed immense initiative, and for 
better or worse, things on the Hill began to move as 
never before. A detailed account of their multifarious 
activities would amount to a chronicle of nearly all that 
was going on in those days, and is impossible here. Of 
course, not all their activities were beneficial; they made 
their share of mistakes, and without doubt created rival- 
ries and occasional friction, of which some hints are given 
in another connection. They had the whole field to them- 
selves until 1882, when a rival chapter appeared. 

The first formal banquet of the P. D.'s was held dur- 
ing commencement week in 1875, an ^ was m certain ways 
so remarkable that the bill of supplies should be put on 
record. Nine members were present, each bringing his 
"girl" — in all, eighteen banqueters. For these the boys 
had provided: one large boiled ham; one full "stem" of 
bananas; one half box of lemons; one half box of or- 
anges; eighteen pineapples — all of which were sliced and 
sugared for the occasion; ten pounds of candy; a large 
market-basket full of nuts of various kinds; two gallons 
of ice-cream; in addition to which, twenty quarts of 
strawberries had been ordered, — "and we were horribly 
disappointed/' says the narrator of these details (Mr. F. N. 
Cleaveland, '77) "because they did not arrive in time. 
Then, at the last moment, 'Bertie' Smith came rushing 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I43 

up to me and exclaimed, 'By George, Frank, we've for- 
gotten all about bread!' So we hurried to the bakery 
and ordered up about a dozen loaves. Remember, we 
were nearly all poor boys, working our way through col- 
lege; but we meant to have that banquet about right." 
He adds: "For weeks afterwards, during the summer, 
several of us haunted that room and nearly lived off the 
remains of the banquet until the tables were bare." So 
in the end nothing was wasted. 

ALPHA SIGMA CHI 

In 1875 the P. D. society became Epsilon Chapter of 
Alpha Sigma Chi, — a small eastern fraternity which had 
its origin at Rutgers College in 1871, and still numbered 
only four or five chapters. The installation was consum- 
mated on December 24, M. D. Makepeace, of Cornell, 
conducting the ceremony; the charter members, in the 
order of induction, were L. P. Hale, '76, C. K. Gaines, '76, 
J. C. Lee, >6, F. N. Cleaveland, '77, J. S. White, '76, 
F. H. Peck, '77, J. C. Willson, >8, F. S. Lee, '78, and 
N. L. Robinson, '77. The fraternity was not then in a 
very flourishing state, but its roster already included some 
remarkable men, notable among whom was William Rai- 
mond Baird, of Stevens Institute, '78, the first edition of 
whose "American College Fraternities," the standard work 
on this subject, was already in preparation and appeared 
soon after. Into this rather feeble organization the new 
chapter promptly infused something of its own character- 
istic energy and aggressiveness. The delegates to the 
convention held at Rutgers in December, 1876, were C. K. 
Gaines, '76, and N. L. Robinson, '77, and they carried 
with them a brand new fraternity constitution, with strict 
instructions from the chapter to get it adopted. And 
adopted it was; something of the sort was plainly needed, 
and with the support of W. R. Baird and others it was 



144 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

unanimously approved. The convention of 1877 was held 
in Canton, December 27 and 28, with Epsilon chapter as 
host. Soon signs of further growth began to appear. 
First a not wholly satisfactory chapter located in Colum- 
bia was expelled; then a new chapter was established at 
Maine State College, and St. Lawrence became its spon- 
sor, Professor Leslie A. Lee, '72, of the Bowdoin College 
faculty, conducting the inauguration ceremony. N. L. 
Robinson, 'jj, was elected "Grand Scribe" in 1876, and 
W. B. Gunnison, '75, "Regent" in 1877, each serving 
a year. 

BETA THETA PI 

At this time Beta Theta Pi, a great national fraternity 
already predominant in the west, was seeking extension 
eastward. The aggressive energy of Alpha Sigma Chi 
arrested the attention of its leaders and seemed to furnish 
the desired opening. Negotiations were begun; a joint 
commission, of which W. C. Ransom, of the University of 
Michigan, was president, W. R. Baird, of Stevens, secre- 
tary, and W. B. Gunnison, '75, a member, met at Niagara 
Falls, August 5, 1879; and before the end of the year all 
the existing chapters of the lesser fraternity, with all their 
graduate members, were incorporated in the greater, — 
the St. Lawrence chapter becoming Beta Zeta of Beta 
Theta Pi. 

Of course in a fraternity of such age and extent the 
relative importance of the local chapter was less, but it 
has always maintained its high standing and received its 
full share of honorable recognition. Williston Manley, '88, 
served as District Chief of what is now District III for 
about twelve years, beginning in 1889. The same office 
was subsequently held by Stanley E. Gunnison, '99, for 
three years, from 1901 to 1904, and by Robert S. Water- 
man, 'oi, from 1904 to 1907. In 1891, at the first district 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I45 

reunion, with the Syracuse chapter as host, seventeen 
representatives of St. Lawrence were present, including 
C. K. Gaines, '76, Williston Manley, '88, G. R. Hardie, 
'90, with many undergraduates who have since become 
prominent. On this occasion Professor Gaines recited a 
poem, "Jam Dies Carpti," which was received with great 
enthusiasm. He was that year elected vice-president of 
the district reunion organization, and in 1893 delivered 
the convention poem at Wooglin-on-Chautauqua. In 1893, 
also, Professors Gaines and Hardie were appointed on a 
committee to revise the ritual. In 1894 the report of this 
committee was presented by Professor Hardie at Chicago, 
and several of the best features of the original P. D. 
ritual ultimately passed into national use. 

As early as 1882 a movement had been organized for 
the building of a chapter house, and about seven hundred 
dollars had been raised. During the period when the 
college itself was struggling for existence this project had 
lapsed; but in 1889 thirteen presumptuous undergradu- 
ates, among whom E. B. Lent, '92, and Lyman Ward, '92, 
were prominent, rented the Rich homestead on College 
Street and made it their chapter home. At first the ex- 
penses were terrifying and the venture seemed hopeless; 
but undaunted, they procured a cow, purchased meat 
and other supplies wholesale, and finally achieved success. 
About this first chapter house many joyous traditions still 
linger. With this demonstration of the practicability of 
the scheme as an argument, the agitation for a chapter 
house built and owned by the chapter was renewed with 
great enthusiasm at the commencement banquet of 1892; 
on which occasion Foster Backus, '73, who never missed 
a reunion banquet and always spoke, made a peculiarly 
telling speech. Before this gathering broke up more than 
three thousand dollars had been secured, and the club 
house became a certainty. It was finally erected in 1897 



I46 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

at a cost of about eight thousand dollars; subsequent im- 
provements, of which the most notable were made in the 
summer of 191 5, have made its ultimate value at least 
fifteen thousand dollars. It is in the Colonial style, with 
wide verandas, a great central hall and stairway, and a 
banquet hall ample for all occasions. It is situated on 
what was, at the time of building, the south margin of the 
college field, facing northward. The title vests in a board 
representing the chapter alumni, and the use of the house 
is subject to their supervision and control. 

The chapter has always maintained its original spirit 
of intense loyalty to St. Lawrence, and has been promi- 
nent in all college activities, — especially those relating 
to journalism. The first two Gridirons were published 
under its auspices in 1880 and 1882, and it took a leading 
part in the establishment of The Laurentian in 1888, and 
The Hill News in 191 1. To enter into further details 
would be inadmissible here; but in the agitation which 
culminated in the adoption of the Honor Code in 191 3, 
its members took an adtive and creditable part. 

THE BROWNING SOCIETY 

Four years after the organization of the Five Lyres 
the first woman's society at St. Lawrence was started. 
The prime mover was Clara Weaver, '76, who had entered 
St. Lawrence in 1872, but at the end of her Freshman 
year, because of the removal of her family to Akron, Ohio, 
had transferred to Buchtel College. In the fall of 1875 
she returned to St. Lawrence, bringing with her Adella 
J. Church, ex-'79, who had also been a student at Buchtel. 
They had both while at Buchtel been members of the local 
Carey Society, which subsequently became Lambda Chap- 
ter of Kappa Kappa Gamma, and they brought with them 
the enthusiasm which had characterized that organization 
and an earnest desire for a similar society at St. Lawrence. 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I47 

Yet it seemed a great venture, and they set about it with 
trepidation and the utmost secrecy; for those were the 
days when the higher education of woman was still con- 
sidered an experiment, and college women were constantly 
on their mettle to prove themselves their brothers' equals. 
To fail in any undertaking was deemed a disaster; so all 
was kept as quiet as possible until success seemed assured. 
The daring souls who thus adventured were Clara Weaver, 
Bessie Adams Weeks, and Inez Ardie Jones, of 9 y6, with 
Georgietta Bacheller, Lucia Elizabeth Heaton, Adella Je- 
rusha Church, and Cora Stickles, of the class of '79. On 
Monday, September 20, "between the hours of twelve and 
one," these seven met in a room on the second floor of the 
old college building and became the founders of the 
Browning Society — named after Elizabeth Barrett, not 
Robert, Browning. 

Cammie Pendleton Woods, another recruit from Buch- 
tel, arrived about four weeks later and was the first mem- 
ber initiated. Then it was proclaimed that the Browning 
Society had been organized and was the feminine compeer 
of the P. D. Whereupon — nothing happened. The 
heavens did not fall, nor did college affairs become disor- 
ganized in any noticeable degree. The men — who, it is 
now suspected, knew of the matter all the while — greeted 
the new society cordially, though calmly, and recognized 
its members as co-workers in college affairs. It soon be- 
came a force to reckon with; the standards of the new 
organization were very high and its members very much 
in earnest. There was as yet no thought of becoming a 
part of a national fraternity — for indeed, Greek-letter 
women's fraternities were a new venture, scarcely known in 
eastern colleges. Avowedly the sole aim was self-improve- 
ment, — a purpose clearly set forth in the motto, chosen 
from the works of Mrs. Browning and repeated at the 
close of every meeting; and this custom has survived 



I48 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

through all vicissitudes of fortune, and today forms part 
of the service of Beta Beta of Kappa Kappa Gamma. 

But the society never lost sight of its primary aim of 
demonstrating woman's equal capacity and fitness for in- 
tellectual advancement. It seems, in retrospect, a little 
superfluous — this almost rabid desire to show themselves 
equal to any demand — for there never was really any op- 
position to coeducation nor any bar to the full participation 
of the women in all college activities at St. Lawrence. 
But no men were allowed to participate in any strictly so- 
ciety enterprise. They were not permitted to accompany 
the members home from the meetings, and it would have 
been regarded as a shocking breach of decorum to allow a 
man to launch or row a boat or in any way assist at the 
society picnic held "up river" on the first of June each year. 

There were times, however, when this spirit of indepen- 
dence was forced to yield to necessity — as when Miner 
Hall was to be decorated for the " Entertainment " herein- 
after recounted. On that occasion W. B. Gunnison, "Jim" 
White, and Clarence Lee were permitted to climb to the 
heights unreachable by the girls. Indeed, despite what 
might be called official aloofness, the most cordial relations 
existed between the men and the women, but especially be- 
tween the members of the two secret organizations — at 
that time the only ones in college. These were naturally 
in sympathy, and this alliance, arising logically from the 
conditions then existing, has never been seriously impaired. 

As soon as the organization was announced its mem- 
bers felt the pressing necessity of doing something worthy 
of their ideals; also of proving to the world in general 
and the college men in particular what women could do. 
With the glorious valor of ignorance they gave what they 
called an "Entertainment" in Miner Hall, December 18, 
1875; and any one who doubts their seriousness of purpose 
should read the program: 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I49 

ENTERTAINMENT 

THE BROWNING SOCIETY (LADIES) 

OF ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, WILL GIVE 

AN ENTERTAINMENT, 

MUSICAL, LITERARY, AND 
DRAMATIC 

IN 
MINER HALL, CANTON, 

SATURDAY EVE., DEC. l8, '75 



PROGRAMME 

Music Fireman's Band 

Prayer President Gaines 

Music Duet 

Misses Cora Stickles and Ettie Bacheller 

Opening Address Inez Jones 

Recitation Emma Powell 

Music Trio 

Misses Church, Weeks, and Weaver 
Essay Cammie Woods 

Greek Oration Clara Weaver 

Music Duet 

Misses Church and Weaver 

Poem Bessie Weeks 

Oration Annette Shaw 

intermission 
Music Fireman's Band 

TO CONCLUDE with the farce entitled 
"THE GREATEST PLAGUE IN LIFE" 

Mrs. Bustle Cora Stickles 

Mary Bustle Emma Powell 

Grandmother Bustle Bessie Weeks 

Biddy O'Raffety Ettie Bacheller 

Kitty Clover Clara Weaver 

Miss Moonshine Lutie Heaton 

Miss Bridget McGuire Dell Church 

Hazy Black Cammie Woods 

Admission - - - - - 35 cents 

Doors open at 7:00; commences at 7:45 o'clock 

PLAINDEALEB. PKINT, CANTON 



I50 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

"Entertainment" might be considered a misnomer were 
it not that the uplifting orations and essays were enlivened 
by the "Fireman's Band" and by a very frivolous farce 
— concessions to the groundlings. The net sum of twelve 
dollars and seventy cents was realized from this effort. 

The society, which at first held its meetings at the 
homes of members, soon felt the need of a permanent 
home and applied for a room in the college building. 
The request was not immediately granted; so on March 
4, 1876, a small room was rented in the Mathews Block 
on Main Street, — and here the Brownings gathered their 
first treasures, and here their first banquet was held. To 
this banquet no guests were invited; no such sumptuous 
display as the P. D/s had recently offered tempted the 
appetite. The "spread" consisted solely of peanuts and 
molasses candy; and ever since, the peanut has been re- 
garded as an essential item on every menu. With the 
molasses candy, one experience seemed quite sufficient. It 
was all unbelievably meager and crude; the furniture was 
collected from the attics of parents — with or without 
their consent; there were never chairs enough to go 
around, and there were absolutely no adornments. But 
the spirit of life was there. 

In June, 1877, the society gave up this room, and 
moved all their belongings temporarily to the home of 
Lucia Heaton. On September 29, 1877, they established 
themselves in more commodious quarters over the St. 
Lawrence County Bank, where they remained until 
finally, largely through the influence of William A. Poste, 
'71, the use of a vacant room in the college building was 
granted them. 

The desire for improvement and for expression was 
always dominant, and in the fall of 1879 the society de- 
cided to engage Mary A. Livermore to give a lecture. 
Unfortunately the date fell on Christmas eve, but the re- 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES 151 

ceipts were creditable to all concerned though insufficient 
to meet expenses. In this connection may be mentioned 
— though not in strict chronological order — one other 
notable effort to exploit their zeal for improvement. This 
was the really notable achievement of bringing the famous 
violinist, Camilla Urso, to give a concert in the town hall 
on Friday evening, December 8, 1882. The receipts 
showed the usual deficit, but the members were happy in 
the assurance that they had demonstrated their high 
ideals and shown what college women were capable of. 
The advertising they did was so clever that Mme. Urso's 
agent asked permission to use it. 

It was in 1880 that the society moved into the college 
building and took possession of "the northeastern corner 
that's nearest the sky"; and in this room, now lost in 
the large lecture room devoted to history, most of the 
customs and traditions of the society originated. Here 
was given the first of those entertainments which are a 
feature of the social life of the present chapter; here was 
held the first "At Home," when the Brownings enter- 
tained their mothers by special invitation; here was per- 
fected the call which has since become the call of the 
national fraternity in which they were finally merged, and 
has been heard the round world over. Here, too, was 
formulated the earliest St. Lawrence "Honor Code," em- 
bodied in a series of resolutions against cheating; and 
here was instituted the custom of the "May Breakfast." 
Like many other customs, this last rose out of necessity. 
The girls used to plant their society tree on Tree Holiday 
with their own hands, and very, very early in the morn- 
ing. In order not to miss any of the exercises they found 
it expedient to breakfast on the spot. So Tree Holiday 
breakfast became an institution, observed long after there 
was any necessity for it. It has now been transferred to 
Moving-up Day. 



152 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 
KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA AND ZETA PHI 

In 1 88 1, six years after its founding, at the unsolicited 
invitation of Kappa Kappa Gamma, the Browning Society 
became Beta Chapter of that fraternity — a title which 
was changed to Beta Beta some years later. The charter 
members were Clara Weaver, 'j6, Adella Church, ex-*79, 
Mrs. B. J. Pink, '73, Mrs. C. K. Gaines, '78, Lucia E. 
Heaton, '79, Mrs. L. P. Hale, ex-'79, Florence J. Lee, '82, 
Nellie E. Folsom, '82, Isabel Maxwell, ex-'83, Alice Grace, 
'83, Annette M. Homer, ex-'85, and Gertrude Lee, '85. 
On September 10, 1881, the oath of initiation was signed; 
and at the same meeting Lucia Elizabeth Heaton, '79, 
was elected delegate to the convention, held at Blooming- 
ton, Indiana, September 29 and 30, 1881. It was on this 
occasion that it was decided to publish a magazine, and 
Miss Heaton was named as one of the committee of ar- 
rangements; also Florence Josephine Lee, '82, was elected 
Grand Treasurer. At the same convention all former 
members of the Browning Society were made Kappas. 

Kappa Kappa Gamma soon found that it had added to 
its ranks a flourishing, original, and energetic chapter, 
rich in ritual, insignia, and songs. Athena, the goddess 
of the Brownings, with her owl, became the watchful guar- 
dian of the whole fraternity; A! Kopcu 'Adrjvas became 
the fraternity call; the heraldic shield, much of the ritual, 
and many of the songs were also adopted. It is inter- 
esting to note that a certain song, written by Inez Ardie 
Jones, '76, for the Browning Society, and always sung at 
its meetings, is now sung all over the country as a part 
of every Kappa meeting. 

At the next convention, held in Madison, Wisconsin, 
August 30 and 31 and September 1, 1882, Florence J. Lee 
was the delegate, and gave the convention oration, "A 
Comparison between the Spartan Women and the Women 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I53 

of Today. " She was also named as a member of the 
Committee on the Constitution. 

The next convention, being the seventh for the frater- 
nity and the third for the chapter, is of special interest 
in that it was held in Canton, during August, 1884; and 
here Beta Chapter — already known, on account of its 
many original songs, as the "singing chapter" — was 
chosen to publish the first national Kappa Kappa Gamma 
song-book. One other convention is worthy of special 
mention, that held at Bloomington, Illinois, in 1890. On 
this occasion Beta was re-designated as Beta Beta, and 
Lucy Evelyn Wight, '91, was elected Grand President. 
Among many other honors which this chapter has re- 
ceived may be mentioned the circumstance that Mrs. 
Charles Kelsey Gaines, '78, was chosen to write the poem 
for the first Pan-Hellenic of Women's Fraternities, held 
in Boston during April, 1891. 

A few years later befell the most unaccountable and 
regrettable episode in the long and brilliant annals of this 
organization, — an occurrence which it is hard, even now, 
for graduates of St. Lawrence to recall without feelings of 
indignation. In the spring of 1898 the national fraternity 
unexpectedly requested that the charter of Beta Beta be 
surrendered. The history of what followed is fully and 
impartially recorded in William Raimond Baird's "Ameri- 
can College Fraternities," and need not be recounted here. 

The chapter, despite its severance from the national 
organization, fully maintained its high standing, and it 
was soon felt that the old narrow quarters were no longer 
adequate. The loved little room was abandoned at the 
opening of the fall term in 1899, and the President's house, 
which was then unoccupied, was rented. This was the 
second women's fraternity house at St. Lawrence, and was 

occupied until the society moved into its own club-house, 

the first owned by a women's fraternity at St. Lawrence. 



154 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

This house is one of the historic landmarks of Canton, 
originally belonging to the Harrison estate; afterwards it 
was purchased and modernized by Senator Dolphus Lynde. 
It stands in one of the best residential parts of the village, 
on a wide lawn embowered in "old patrician trees," and 
furnishes a dignified and spacious home, admirably adapted 
for the use of the present Beta Beta Chapter. This house 
was purchased by the St. Lawrence Alumnae of Kappa 
Kappa Gamma, and is now the property of the Local and 
New York City St. Lawrence Alumnae of Kappa Kappa 
Gamma and Zeta Phi. For in 1903, under the patronage 
and encouragement of these alumnae, the chapter was 
organized as a local society with the name Zeta Phi. 
Despite the disadvantage of being a local organization, 
Zeta Phi maintained with unvarying success the high 
standard which it inherited from the original Beta Beta. 
Its membership was always large and choice; it had its 
full share in college activities and honors. During the 
twelve years of its existence it presented with signal suc- 
cess three of Shakespeare's plays: As You Like It, in 
1904; Merchant of Venice, in 1905; and in 1912, A Mid- 
summers Night's Dream was given under the trees of the 
college campus — the first out-of-doors performance in this 
region. The entire cast for all these plays, with the ex- 
ception of some child fairies, was chosen from the active 
society. 

In the spring of 1914 Zeta Phi decided that the time 
had come to ally itself with a national organization, and 
despite the unhappy incident above adverted to, naturally 
turned first to Kappa Kappa Gamma, the fraternity of its 
founders. The petition for the charter was presented at 
the convention held at Boulder, Colorado, in August, 1914, 
and was granted as soon as the necessary preliminaries 
could be disposed of. On Saturday, October 16, 1915, a 
new charter was given, and Zeta Phi was installed as the 



F R A T E R N I T I E S A N D SOCIETIES I55 

reinstated Beta Beta Chapter of Kappa Kappa Gamma. 
A reception was given on Friday evening, October 15, to 
the officers and visitors at the home of Mrs. Charles K. 
Gaines, '78, and on the following evening a banquet, at 
which ninety-three guests and members were seated, was 
given in the club-house now known as Kappa Lodge. 

Mrs. Howard B. Mullin, Editor of The Key, and Miss 
Martha Willets, Grand Treasurer, were the installing offi- 
cers, and Beta Sigma, of Adelphi College, was the spon- 
sor chapter. 

ALPHA TAU OMEGA 

Unlike the other chapters of the Greek-letter fraterni- 
ties at St. Lawrence, Alpha Omicron Chapter of the Alpha 
Tau Omega fraternity had no previous existence as a 
local society. The founder was Irving Bacheller of the 
class of 1882. Throughout the whole of his undergradu- 
ate life Mr. Bacheller had the growing conviction that 
not only was there room but a positive need for another 
fraternity at St. Lawrence; hence in his Senior year he 
associated with him Hobart Barber Chandler of Canton, 
a Junior, Charles Frank Johns of Salamanca, Fremont 
Pearsons Peck of Stone Mills, and Chauncey White Mar- 
tyn of Canton, Freshmen, and made application to the 
Alpha Tau Omega fraternity for a charter, which was 
granted in the early part of the year 1882. The first 
meeting of the chapter was held March 18, 1882, at which 
time the charter members were initiated. A few weeks 
later James Edward Church, a Junior, Robert Dale Ford, 
a Freshman, and Bernard Jacques Pink, at that time 
Professor of Modern Languages in the college, were initi- 
ated. At the following commencement Professor Pink re- 
signed from the faculty to take up the practice of law and 
Mr. Bacheller graduated, and upon the remaining six, two 
Seniors and four Sophomores, young and inexperienced in 



156 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

such work, with no resident alumni with whom to advise, 
devolved the responsibility of developing and maintaining 
the chapter. It was a man's task with boys to perform 
it, and only those upon whom the responsibility fell can 
ever understand and appreciate the magnitude of the 
undertaking. A chapter room on the third floor of the 
old college building, now called Richardson Hall, was as- 
signed by the trustees, — a tiny room, but amply large 
for this little loyal and devoted band. Other rooms on 
the second floor of the same building were used in later 
years, and for a short time a room in the Mathews Block 
on Main Street. In 1893 a chapter house was rented on 
Elm Street. This was the beginning, for this chapter, of 
the modern phase of fraternity life which has now become 
its most prominent feature, — the fraternity club-house 
and the providing of a college home for fraternity men. 
A few years later the Wilbur house on Judson Street 
(now the Delta house) was rented, and a smaller house 
across the street was used for an annex. From here the 
chapter moved into the Harrison house on upper Judson 
Street, where it remained until 1908, when the residence 
of the late Justice Leslie W. Russell was purchased and 
converted into a club-house. This is a valuable property 
adjoining the campus, comprising two acres of land with 
the finest grove of shade trees in Canton. The house is 
a large, three-story, brick building, and provides a com- 
fortable and elegant home for the chapter. The title to 
the property is held by a corporation composed of alumni 
of the chapter. 

Two members of the chapter have held prominent 
offices in the national organization. Irving Bacheller, the 
distinguished author, poet, and lecturer, was for some years 
a member of the High Council. In 191 2 Nathan Ford 
Giffin, of the class of 1895, was elected Worthy Grand 
Chief, and to this office he was re-elected in 1914. The 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES 157 

term of office is two years, and the incumbent is rarely 
re-elected. At the time of his election to this high office 
Mr. Giffin was Province Chief of the Province in which 
this chapter is located. 

The chapter has always taken a prominent part in all 
college activities. This applies to athletics probably more 
than to any other branch, and every athletic team which 
has represented the college in the last twenty years has 
had a large contingent from this source. That this has 
not impaired the scholarship standing of the members is 
evident from the fact that exactly one-third of the men 
elected from the Senior class to membership in Phi Beta 
Kappa have been from this chapter. 

Some years ago the writer in addressing the chapter 
at one of its banquets said that it was the duty of every 
college man to take as high a rank in scholarship as his 
ability permitted; but it was the added duty of every 
fraternity man to support and maintain everything con- 
nected with the college, — especially the activities which 
brought the college into relationship with other institu- 
tions, thereby enhancing the reputation of the college and 
justifying the continuance of the fraternity as a feature 
of college life. For many years it has been the policy 
of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity to maintain a stand- 
ard of scholarship fully commensurate with the ability of 
the active membership; to support every worthy college 
activity; and to consider loyalty to the college as the pri- 
mary duty of every undergraduate, and loyalty to the 
chapter as secondary. 

DELTA DELTA DELTA 

Chapters of Beta Theta Pi, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and 
Alpha Tau Omega had been for some time established at 
St. Lawrence when a few non-sorority girls, feeling that 
the advantages of fraternity life might be enjoyed by a 



I58 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

larger number, began a movement to form another similar 
organization. Florence M. Jackson (now Mrs. B. A. 
Greene) of the class of '93, was the leading spirit in this; 
and it was chiefly through her efforts and enthusiasm that 
the little group of charter members was organized, and 
correspondence with a view to interesting a national fra- 
ternity begun. The sentiment and aims of a new women's 
Greek-letter society which had been founded at Boston 
University three years before appealed to the girls; hence, 
in the spring of 1891, application was made to this organ- 
ization for a charter, and on December 24, 1891, the little 
company of nine became Beta Chapter of Delta Delta 
Delta. This fraternity, then in its infancy with only five 
chapters, was fortunate in having been founded by a 
woman who made fraternity problems her life study; 
profiting by the history of the older societies, she so 
shaped and guided the development of Delta Delta Delta 
that today it stands in the front rank of college women's 
fraternities and has the largest number of active and 
alumnae chapters of any of the women's national Greek- 
letter organizations. Ida Shaw Martin, founder of the 
fraternity, is recognized as an authority on all fraternity 
questions, particularly those relating to the women's 
organizations. Her Sorority Handbook, of which five 
editions have already been published, has been adopted 
as the basis for fraternity study by practically all the soror- 
ities, and holds the same position in the sorority field that 
Baird's "American College Fraternities" holds in the 
fraternity world. 

The early history of Beta Chapter is of greatest interest 
to its own members and to those making a special study 
of fraternity life and fraternity growth and spirit. In 
those days there was no such broad sympathy between 
different Greek-letter organizations as exists today; the 
little group found its path full of difficulties which tried its 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES I59 

strength and steadfastness, and often threatened its very 
life, but the tiny spark of the fire of loyalty and devotion to 
the sacred teachings of the fraternity was never quenched. 
Though they were often disheartened, the undaunted spirit 
of those early members did not yield, and in time their 
courage and earnestness began to bear fruit and the days 
grew brighter. 

In the early years the chapter had its rooms on the 
third floor of Richardson Hall, — what has now become 
the central alcove bearing the emblem of the stars and cres- 
cent until the remodeling of the building into its present 
form. Many interesting stories are told of the furnishing 
of these rooms from the cast-ofF relics found in the attics 
of the various members, of the skill of the girls in manu- 
facturing wonderful pieces of furniture as necessity 
demanded, and of the meetings themselves. During cold 
weather the rooms were heated by a wood-stove, and 
chapter night found the girls hurrying up the hill, each 
with a basket of wood. Oftentimes, the baskets contained 
other things as well, for college girls in those days enjoyed 
spreads fully as much as the girls of today. It is reported 
that most delegable oyster stews and other favorite 
dishes were not infrequently prepared on the little wood 
heater. Meetings were held in these rooms until 1897, 
when the chapter rented the house now occupied by Mr. 
D. M. Jordan on Jay Street, and there established a 
chapter home, with Mrs. Jackson, mother of one of the 
girls, as house-mother. This was something of an experi- 
ment, as it was the first girls' fraternity house at St. 
Lawrence; but it proved a success, and since that time 
the girls have always enjoyed the advantages of a chapter 
home. After the purchase of the house on Jay Street by 
Mr. Jordan, the chapter occupied the Maloney house on 
Pine Street, and then the old Rich home on College Street. 
In January, 1914, the alumnae purchased the Cheetham 



l6o SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

house on Judson Street, one of the finest residences in 
the town, and remodeled it for a permanent chapter home. 

Although St. Lawrence is one of the smallest colleges 
on the roster of the fraternity, Beta has always been recog- 
nized as one of the most loyal chapters, and has received 
a generous share of national honors. Among those who 
have been given national recognition might be mentioned 
Edith Wait (Mrs. A. D. Colson) '93, who served very 
capably as National Treasurer from 1894 to J ^97> Esther 
Spencer (Mrs. Harland Bailey) '03, who as National 
Marshal, from 1908 to 191 1, perfected the present system 
of cataloguing the fraternity; and Minnie A. D. Hulett, 
who has held the office of National Marshal since 191 1 
and was re-elected at the National Convention in 191 5 for 
another term. For the past year Mrs. Hulett has been 
collecting and preparing the material for a new edition 
of the Fraternity Directory, which is now in the hands of 
the publisher. This has been an arduous task, as the 
membership is well up in the thousands and the data are 
sufficient to make a volume of six or eight hundred pages. 
In addition to these national offices several members have 
been appointed to district positions, and at the time of 
writing Clara M. Sloat, '12, is serving as Assistant Secre- 
tary of the Alumnae of New York State. 

Beta Chapter of Delta Delta Delta has always taken 
a prominent part in all college activities, and has won a 
full share of college and class offices and honors. Since 
the chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was established in 1899, 
nineteen members have been elected to membership 
in that society, and commencement honors have been 
received by many others. The St. Lawrence branch 
of the Young Women's Christian Association was estab- 
lished largely through the efforts of Helen Wright, 'io, 
who was its first President; and the chapter was most 
active in forming the Women's Forum, of which Eliza- 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES l6l 

beth M. Waters, '13, was the first President, with 
Jane Laidlaw, '14, as Secretary, and Rena Paul, '14, 
as Treasurer. 

Since their college days the alumnae of the chapter 
have given a good account of themselves, and several have 
attained marked success in their chosen fields. Perhaps 
the most prominent in a public way is Minnie C. Jackson 
(Mrs. S. G. Ayers) '97, who was re-elected President of 
the Women's National Missionary Society of the Universal- 
ist Church at their convention in July, 191 5, and whose 
work for missions is widely and favorably known. Of the 
younger alumnae, the work of Beta's one lawyer, Helen 
P. McCormick, '08, as factory inspector in a crowded 
section of New York City is perhaps the most interesting 
and unusual. Many others might be mentioned who, 
either in the professional field or as quiet home-makers, 
are doing their part in the world's work in a creditable 
way. 

PHI BETA KAPPA 

In presenting its claims to representation in this, the 
first and most highly regarded of all American college 
fraternities, St. Lawrence owes much to the friendly 
interest of General Newton M. Curtis, the hero of Fort 
Fisher, and to his former foe but subsequent friend, 
Colonel William Lamb of William and Mary, the college in 
which the society had its origin. The charter for the 
establishment at St. Lawrence of "Lambda Chapter of 
New York," of Phi Beta Kappa, was granted in September, 
1898, but the chapter was not installed until the com- 
mencement of 1899. The charter members were Henry 
Priest, Ph.D., Tufts '74, Professor of Physics, Charles 
Henry Eaton, D.D., Tufts '74, Lecturer at St. Lawrence, 
and Edward Payson Manning, Ph.D., Brown '89, 
Instructor in Mathematics. When the time came to install 



l62 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

the chapter Professor Priest was the only charter member 
in residence, and he invited John Clarence Lee, Ph.D., 
S.T.D., '76, then President of the College, Robert Dale 
Ford, M.S., '85, Professor of Mathematics, George Robert 
Hardie, M.A., '90, Professor of Latin, Absalom Graves 
Gaines, D.D., LL.D., former President and at that time 
Professor of Philosophy, Henry Hermann Liotard, M.A., 
Professor of Modern Languages, and Professor Frederic 
CofFyn Foster, Wabash '85, Professor of History, to assist 
him in the organization; and these invited Vasco Pickett 
Abbott, M.A., LL.B., '67, John Stocker Miller, M.A., '69, 
Robert Emmet Waterman, B.A., '72, Foster L. Backus* 
M.A., LL.B., '73, Walter Balfour Gunnison, Ph.D., '75, 
Charles Kelsey Gaines, Ph.D., '76, Ledyard Park Hale r 
M.S., LL.B., '76, Clara Weaver Robinson, M.A., '76, 
Nelson Lemuel Robinson, M.A., '77, Lucia Elizabeth 
Heaton, M.S., M.D., '79, and George Sheldon Conkey, 
B.A., '83, to become organization members. The installa- 
tion of the chapter took place in the College Chapel on 
June 24, 1899. 

The Phi Beta Kappa Society is the oldest of the Greek- 
letter fraternities, having been founded at the College of 
William and Mary, December 5, 1776, to encourage 
philosophical study; for many years its function has been 
entirely honorary. There are now chapters in eighty- 
six colleges and universities, including all the leading 
institutions in America, and election to membership is 
regarded as the highest honor the student can earn. At 
St. Lawrence elections are made from the Senior class 
only, during the week of commencement. The choice 
is made on recommendation of the faculty from those 
ranking in the first third of the class as determined by 
the college records; and from this number not more than 
one-fourth of the class can be elected. In practice a 
much smaller number is chosen, and no one receives this 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES 163 

honor who has not attained a high average grade for 
scholarship. 

In 1902, the chapter inaugurated the custom of having 
a Phi Beta Kappa address at commencement. This 
address, called the Phi Beta Kappa oration, is given by 
some distinguished speaker, usually in the Town Hall, and 
the public is invited. In several instances there has been 
read at the same time an original poem written for the 
occasion by some member of the chapter. This is one 
of the most enjoyable features of commencement, and the 
attendance is by no means limited to the members of the 
society. The following is a list of the orators and poets: 
1902, Orator, Archibald McCullagh, Poet, Irving Bacheller, 
Litt.D., '82; 1903, Orator, the Honorable Elon R. Brown, 
Poet, John Langdon Heaton, M.A., '80; 1904, Orator, 
Samuel McChord Carothers, D.D., Poet, Charles Kelsey 
Gaines, Ph.D., '76; 1905, Orator, John Stocker Miller, 
LL.D., '69; 1907, Orator, Henry Blanchard, D.D.; 1908, 
Orator, Thomas B. Stowell, Ph.D.; 1909, Orator, Merle 
St. Croix Wright, D.D.; 1910, Orator, John Van Schaick, 
D.D.; 191 1, Orator, the Honorable Andrew McLean; 
191 5, Orator, Isaac Morgan Atwood, D.D. 

The present officers of the society are: President, 
Owen D. Young, Ph.B., LL.B., '94; Vice-President, 
Charles Kelsey Gaines, Ph.D., '76; Secretary-Treasurer, 
Robert Dale Ford, M.S., '85; Executive Committee, the 
President, the Vice-President, and the Secretary-Treasurer, 
ex officio; also John Murray Atwood, D.D., '89, Lucia 
Elizabeth Heaton, M.S., M.D., '79, Frank Nash Cleave- 
land, M.A./77, and Clarence Hurd Gaines, M.A., 'oo. 

PHI SIGMA KAPPA 

During the first years of President Gunnison's admin- 
istration there were at St. Lawrence two fraternities, two 
sororities, and a literary society. Conditions had become 



164 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

such that a mere literary society was found inadequate; 
hence nine of its members, on February 10, 1902, formed 
a preliminary organization known as the Decemvirs, for 
the purpose of securing a charter as a chapter of some 
national fraternity. Through the good offices of President 
Gunnison, F. N. Cleaveland, '77, and William Raimond 
Baird of Beta Theta Pi, the boys were put in touch with 
Doctor John Cutter, President of Phi Sigma Kappa. On 
March 14, only thirty-two days after they had organized, 
the Decemvirs were granted a charter by the Grand 
Council, and twenty-nine days later, April 12, were 
inducted into the Greek world as Xi Chapter of Phi Sigma 
Kappa, the inductory ceremonies and banquet being con- 
ducted at the Hodskin House. 

The charter members were G. R. Hastings, Charles 
Sheard, and J. F. Morgan, of '03; Blaine Gilday, '04; 
H. H. Dewey, R. E. Briggs, E. W. Maloney, J. B. Gillett, 
and B. E. Ruggles, of '05. J. S. Lowe, '05, the first 
initiate, was brought out at the inductory banquet and 
made up the full quota of the Decemvirs. All the other 
fraternities showed their good will by giving the new 
chapter a rousing send-off. 

Before the opening of the next college year Professor 
Liotard's house on Church Street had been secured as a 
chapter house. On October 15, at the first initiatory 
banquet, the following new members were brought out: 
M. H. Jewett, L. Moses, J. L. Ames, L. O. Black, L. R. 
Blanchard, and W. R. Baker, all of '06. The chapter at 
once entered into the various activities of the college, 
social as well as athletic, and did all in its power to sup- 
port the college spirit. The first alumni banquet was 
held on Monday evening, June 22, 1902, at the chapter 
house. Hastings, Morgan, and Sheard, the first members 
to graduate, were chosen as three of the four speakers at 
the commencement exercises, and the first two were elected 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES 165 

to Phi Beta Kappa. J. S. Lowe and B. C. Ruggles were 
graduated from the Theological School, the former in 1901, 
the latter in 1903. 

The first year closed with every one satisfied with what 
had been accomplished, and from that time to the present 
the standards of Xi Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa, both 
ethical and scholastic, have been of the highest. In 1906, 
shortly after the resignation of Professor Lewis B. Fisher, 
of the Theological School, to assume the presidency of 
Lombard College at Galesburg, Illinois, a lease of the large 
and commodious residence which he then vacated was 
secured, and this became the chapter home. It stands 
on the west side of Upper Park Street, facing the campus 
and not far distant from the Weeks Athletic Field — 
where some of its inmates have notably distinguished 
themselves — and is admirably adapted to its use as a 
chapter house. In 191 5, the date of the writing of this 
sketch, Phi Sigma Kappa has the largest active chapter 
roll of any of the fraternities at St. Lawrence. The alumni 
of the chapter take rank among the most representative 
and successful St. Lawrence men, and all are striving to 
maintain the high standards of the fraternity. 

PI BETA PHI 

The chapter now known as New York Gamma of Pi 
Beta Phi was originally founded as a local sorority. On 
the fourth of November, 1904, Omega Gamma Sigma was 
introduced to the college world of St. Lawrence at a 
formal dinner given by seven girls, in a chapter house 
already furnished; on which occasion the other fraternities 
of the college gave them serenades of welcome. A recep- 
tion was given later to the faculty, trustees, and some of 
the leading citizens of the village. The new society made 
its initial appearance with badge, colors, flower, and — best 
of all — high ideals and a determination to succeed. Their 



l66 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

chosen colors were green and gold, their flower was the 
daffodil, and their first badge was a circular bronze shield, 
displaying on an inner field a second shield bearing on a 
transverse bar the Greek letters 12 T 2. On the border of 
the outer shield was the open motto of the society, 
BovXoiJLeda 'Act. The call was "Omega Gamma Sigma 
— Boulometha Aei." Soon after the establishment of the 
society the Omegas adopted, in place of the original 
badge, the pin familiar to all Laurentians of the following 
years. This consisted of a conventionalized laurel leaf of 
green enamel, bearing the Greek letters 12 T 2) superimposed 
diagonally upon an open square of gold. The former pin 
was now used as a secret pledge pin. 

The first chapter house was on Chapel Street. In the 
spring of 1905, finding this house too small, the Mathews 
house on Park Street, now occupied by Professor Hardie, 
was secured. The opening of college in the fall of 1906 
found the girls at home in the Hosley house on Miner 
Street. The following year they occupied the Caldwell 
house on Pine Street, which has been for the past twenty 
years (with the exception of this one season) a boarding- 
house for college girls. Finally, in the spring of 1908, 
they leased from the University the house opposite the 
President's house and facing the campus, which they still 
occupy. 

In 1909 the alumnae of the chapter, in order to give 
more effective aid to the active chapter and to keep strong 
the bond between themselves, organized the "Boulometha 
Aei Association," with headquarters in New York City 
and Canton. This association held an annual dinner in 
New York during the Christmas holidays, and a business 
meeting in Canton during commencement week. 

But it must not be assumed that these girls were con- 
tent with the success they had thus far achieved, nor that 
they had no ambition to enter into the greater field of 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES 167 

fraternity life that would become open to them through 
affiliation with some national sorority. They early recog- 
nized the benefits to be derived from such affiliation. 
Only one national sorority, Delta Delta Delta, was at that 
time represented by a chapter here, and the members 
of Omega Gamma Sigma felt that theirs should be the 
task of securing for their Alma Mater recognition in 
another of the older sororities. 

After careful study of Baird's Manual and consultation 
with many fraternity men and women, it was decided 
to seek admission to Pi Beta Phi. It was no small task 
which these girls had set themselves, for Pi Beta Phi is 
conservative, and serious obstacles were immediately 
encountered, — especially the fact that St. Lawrence is 
a small eastern college, rather isolated in location, while 
fraternity expansion at the present day is mainly directed 
westward and southward. But the chapter persevered, 
and after long-continued effort and several visits of inspec- 
tion by officers and delegates — all of whom were skeptical 
before arrival but enthusiastic on departure — the reward 
came in the news, received February 16, 1914, of the 
granting of the much-coveted charter. On March 20, 
Doctor May L. Keller, Grand President of the fraternity, 
assisted by eleven delegates from the nearest chapters, 
installed the twenty-three members of the active chapter 
and twenty-four of the alumnae of Omega Gamma Sigma 
as New York Gamma of Pi Beta Phi. The whole-hearted 
welcome given by the other fraternities to the newly 
established chapter, and the cordial greetings of both 
faculty and students, did much to emphasize to the guests 
the true St. Lawrence spirit. 

On the next day, March 21, an alumnae organization, 
"The Northern New York Alumnae Club of Pi Beta Phi," 
was chartered by the alumnae department of the general 
fraternity. Shortly after this, "The St. Lawrence Arrow 



l68 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Association," an incorporated body, was formed for the 
purpose of raising money to acquire a permanent home 
for the active chapter. At the twenty-third biennial 
convention of Pi Beta Phi, held July 5 to 10, 191 5, at 
Berkeley, California, New York Gamma was represented 
by four members, — one undergraduate and three alumnae. 

In the project now dearest to the hearts of all Pi Beta 
Phi's, New York Gamma has shown her interest. This 
is the Settlement School for isolated and uneducated white 
children in the mountains of East Tennessee, located at 
Gatlinburg, which, after having been in preparation for 
several years, was opened in February, 191 2, by the alum- 
nae of the fraternity, by whom it is entirely carried on 
and supported. In December, 1914, the New York 
Gamma undergraduates and alumnae held a sale of fancy 
work, the proceeds of which were sent to the "Little 
Pigeon," the name familiarly applied to the school from 
its location on Little Pigeon River. 

From its very start as Omega Gamma Sigma, this 
chapter has well sustained its part in the college and 
fraternity world. But a few months after organization, 
its first President, Mary Per Lee, '07, gave the under- 
graduate oration at the Moving-up Day exercises of 1905. 
The members of the chapter have been represented in all 
the strictly college organizations, and have had their due 
share of the honors. 

A word about the appreciation of scholarship in Pi 
Beta Phi may not be out of place. The value of sound 
scholarship in a college education has always been held 
in the highest estimation by the members of both Omega 
Gamma Sigma and Pi Beta Phi. Their record has been 
good, and eight of their graduates during the past seven 
years have been elected into Phi Beta Kappa. 

During the last college year (1914-15) the active chap- 
ter numbered twenty-five and the alumnae twenty-eight. 



FRATERNITIES AND SOCIETIES 169 

CHI ZETA SIGMA 

The Chi Zeta Sigma society was founded May 25, 1905, 
by Stephen Clayton Sumner, '06, Clarence Everett Barter, 
'06, and Herbert Bradford Bailey, '05. Associated with 
them as charter members were Clarence Luke East, ex- 
'07, Everett Beach Spraker, Mark E. Horton, Cyril 
Backus Clark, and Claude William Butler, of '08, and 
Jerome James Brainerd, '09. These students, knowing that 
many men of excellent character and ability were not 
enrolled in any of the fraternities, united to establish a 
society with high standards, preeminent among which is 
a high ideal of scholarship. 

While the society by no means despises eminence in 
other college activities, its primary aim has been to build 
up strong, scholarly, Christian character. During the ten 
years of its existence it has secured recognition in all 
branches of the college activities, — athletics, dramatics, 
the college publications, debating, and the various public 
societies. At the same time its members have always 
kept the original ideal uppermost in their minds. 

Since its organization the society has maintained a 
club-house, at which a majority of its members reside; 
it now occupies the old historic Lee house, for many years 
the home of a former head of the college. This building 
faces the President's house and the college field, and is 
admirably situated for its purpose. 

The fraternity has grown steadily and conservatively 
since its organization, as is shown by its roster. There 
are at the date of writing fifty on the alumni list 
and twenty-one in the active chapter. 

Note : The facsimile on the following page is from the Gridiron of 1880. 



I70 SIXTY YEARS. OF ST. LAWRENCE 







> 



^ 



>* 



^ 



T*y 



GENESIS. 

®lje $1. JO/s riggeb a snug retreat, 
&tje $L D/s riggeb a snug retreat, 
©|je #. ffl.'s riggeb a snug retreat, 
3lnb ftlleb it raittj all ttjen roulb ftnb to eat 

(Etjorus— If nou belong to our 0. .D. 

fere's mn Ijeart anb Ijanb tfttaei, 
We'll no longer roam. 

®ljen luggeb tlje instruments ant one bn one, 
©Ije air-pump first, anb tlje tjerbarium. 

®tjen lineb tlje walls roitlj jtre-proof brick, 
&nb slappeb an plastering ten inches ttjicb. 

•But mtjen ttjeir monen all mas gone* 

W\Wi ttjetjrroonlbn't stop, butttjen bent rfgfrf on. 

®ljen Ijireb olb -jOtjistn to Ijelp ttjem ttjrongtj, 
3,nb some smaller beoils 't a bargain too. 

©tjen got some skulls some arofnl man ; 
©tjere mere ten djaps missing ttjat nert M\j. 

2lnb ttjen tljeu stole all ttjen coulb get, 
&nb tljen lockeb it up, anb tljen'oe got it net. 



V** 



CHAPTER XI 
UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 

THE ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY PRESS GRIDIRONS AND 

OTHER ANNUALS THE LAURENTIAN THE HILL NEWS 

GLEANINGS FROM THE COLLEGE CATALOGUE. 

THE first attempt to start a periodical at St. Lawrence 
was made in 1870 by Eugene M. Grant, then a 
Senior in the Theological School. The students at 
that time were few and poor; they could not be induced 
to act upon his urgent suggestion and themselves shoulder 
the responsibility of such an undertaking. Everybody, 
however, was willing to see the experiment tried, and 
promised support. With more zeal than wisdom, perhaps, 
— certainly with more ambition than money — he under- 
took the task alone. Soon after this decision had been 
reached he began the active work of the ministry in the 
neighboring village of Madrid. He bought out a small 
local printing office, with a hand-press and other primitive 
appliances, sent to Boston for new type, and began the 
publication of The St. Lawrence University Press in 1870. 
That the young publisher devoted much time and energy 
to this undertaking will appear from the fact that the 
same individual acted as publisher, editor, business man- 
ager, compositor, foreman, pressman, proof-reader, mailing 
clerk, book-keeper, and banker. Every member save one 
of the faculty, and as far as could be learned every student, 
favored the experiment; but one wise professor gave warn- 
ing of failure, on the ground that the University had no 
money to put into the enterprise and the constituency 



172 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

was not large enough for its support. Had this warning 
been heeded, the young minister might have been the 
richer by about three hundred dollars. Nevertheless, he 
is still complacent in the belief that both money and 
energy were expended in a good cause. 

The St. Lawrence University Press received its long 
name because its publisher wished every copy and every 
allusion to it to sound the full name of the institution, 
and thus make it better known. It was an unpretentious 
folio of three wide columns. It had a few paid advertise- 
ments. It contained some articles of general interest, 
written by students and instructors, but for the most part 
was made up of news of the activities and conditions of the 
college, its faculty, students, and alumni, with strong advo- 
cacy of coeducation. The subscription list was very small, 
and the enterprise soon came to an end; only five monthly 
numbers were issued. How long the enthusiastic publisher 
would have continued to sink money in this losing venture 
is hard to say, for his removal to another field of activity 
cut short his close connection with the University. 

GRIDIRONS AND OTHER ANNUALS 

In 1880, under the auspices of the local chapter of 
Beta Theta Pi and largely on the initiative of Nelson L. 
Robinson and other resident alumni, an annual called 
The Gridiron was issued, — the first of a considerable 
series of similar publications. This first issue is bound in 
seal-brown paper with scarlet back and lettering, and a 
gridiron, in gilt, figures on the cover. It contains much 
matter which is now of traditional interest, including a 
number of poems, of which the most remarkable is a 
curious blank-verse description of the first football game, 
executed in the epic vein. The illustrations are for the 
most part very crude, but show considerable ingenuity; 
and it is worthy of record that some of the earliest draw- 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 173 

ings of Frederic Remington appear in this annual. Very 
few copies of this Gridiron are now in existence. To its 
financial backers it proved a costly enterprise. 

Nevertheless, in 1882 a second Gridiron was brought 
out under the same auspices, — one of the leading spirits 
in this case being Lawson C. Rich, '82. In form it closely 
resembled the previous issue, but the gilt gridiron was set 
diagonally on the cover. It contains a poem celebrating 
one of those Tree Holiday class conflicts of which mention 
is made in another part of this volume. It is noteworthy 
that Irving Bacheller, '82, contributed one of the class 
histories and perhaps other matter. The pictorial art 
shows little improvement from the earlier issue. Both, 
however, contain beautifully executed steel engravings 
of the emblems of some of the recently established fra- 
ternity chapters. This Gridiron, like its predecessor, 
proved a heart-breaking failure financially; and for many 
years there were no more ventures in this field. 

After the lapse of about fourteen years, however, the 
class of 1896 had the courage to make a fresh attempt, 
issuing a very handsome cloth-bound volume entitled 
The Sketch Book, dedicated to Doctor Alpheus Baker 
Hervey, who had then but recently laid down the presi- 
dency. Since the day of the early Gridirons half-tone 
processes had come into general use, and most of the 
pictures in The Sketch Book are reproductions of photo- 
graphs and very good. There are several biographical 
sketches, notably one of Doctor Hervey, and numerous 
poems, one of which is Fides et Veritas by Nelson L. 
Robinson, '77; some fiction also appears. The whole 
execution of the book is decidedly superior to anything 
which had preceded it in this line. 

The third Gridiron was published in 1901 by the class 
of that year, with E. W. Scripter as editor-in-chief; it 
was dedicated to President Almon Gunnison, then recently 



174 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

inaugurated. Although the old title, Gridiron, is resumed, 
in style and make-up this annual more nearly resembles 
The Sketch Book. The seal of the University appears in 
gilt on the cover, and the frontispiece is an ingenious 
symbolic picture of a flaming gridiron, printed in color, 
designed by George KaufFman, formerly art director of the 
Bacheller Syndicate. The book contains some fiction, and 
many songs and poems, one of which is Jam Dies Carpti, by 
C. K. Gaines, 9 j6\ another commemorates one of the most 
regrettable incidents in the history of St. Lawrence, when an 
excited college officer, several years previously, had actually 
discharged a gun at a disorderly group of students. 

The next annual, entitled The Canto and dedicated to 
Professor Henri Hermann Liotard, then recently retired, 
was issued by the class of 1904, Edwin D. Duryea being 
editor-in-chief. This is a book of more than one hundred 
and fifty pages, larger than any of its predecessors; it 
is bound in black cloth, the attempt to reproduce the 
college colors being abandoned. It contains, besides the 
matter usual in such publications, several songs and poems, 
the most noteworthy being "The Song of the Northern 
Exiles" by John Langdon Heaton, '80. The frontispiece 
is a reproduction of an old Spanish panel representing 
Saint Lawrence, which had recently been presented to the 
college by Frederick Gunnison. 

The next annual was published by the class of 1908, 
who returned to the original title, The Gridiron. It is 
a thick volume, printed on extra heavy paper and bound 
in brown cloth with a scarlet panel for the name and the 
college seal. It is without a formal dedication, but a 
portrait of President Gunnison forms the frontispiece; 
the editor-in-chief was Carlyle H. Black. Most of the 
matter is along the conventional lines of college annuals, 
— mainly pictures, statistics, and skits. Much the best 
feature is a detailed account of the founding of St. Law- 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 175 

rence University, and especially of the laying of the corner- 
stone of Richardson Hall, by Richard C. Ellsworth, '95. 

In the annual published by the class of 1912, issued 
just thirty-two years after the appearance of the first 
Gridiron, this now time-honored title is retained. It is 
edited by H. B. Adsit, and dedicated to Professor Charles 
Kelsey Gaines, 9 y6, whose portrait, after a painting by 
Mrs. Frances Robinson Ames, ex-'88, forms the frontis- 
piece. This volume, bound in black cloth with the grid- 
iron lined in black on a gilt background, is considerably 
larger than any of its predecessors, and on the whole 
doubtless represents the most creditable performance in 
this line by the students of St. Lawrence up to date. It 
contains a poem by Professor Gaines bearing the Greek 
title, Jldvra Pel; also a very clever bit of burlesque 
and satire by Professor George H. Chadwick, and a clever 
story by H. F. Landon, '13, besides many other items of 
value and interest. The statistical and historical matter 
is exceptionally complete and accurate. 

The Class of 1916, noting that the time had arrived, 
according to recent usage, for the issue of another annual, 
decided to publish, with the cooperation of the alumni, a 
book of far greater importance and more lasting interest 
than anything which has hitherto appeared; and the result 
of their efforts is seen in THIS VOLUME. 

THE LAURENTIAN 

Meanwhile, in the fall of 1887, almost seventeen years 
after the discontinuance of The St. Lawrence University 
Press, a number of undergraduates, with the hearty co- 
operation of several of the resident alumni, formed a self- 
constituted board to make a fresh start in college 
journalism. This movement culminated in the founding 
of The Laurentian, the first successful college periodical 
at St. Lawrence. Among the students actively concerned 



I76 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

in the enterprise, F. Y. Adams, who became the first 
editor-in-chief, and Williston Manley, the first business 
manager, are entitled to special mention. Application 
for recognition was made to the faculty, and several of 
the professors were earnest supporters of the project; 
hence the plans promptly received official approval, and 
the first number of the new monthly appeared in January, 
1888. At first the editors and other officers were appointed 
by the organization by which the magazine was started, 
with ratification by the faculty; but after a time, all those 
originally connected with the movement having become 
graduates, the whole matter of the appointment of editors 
devolved on the faculty. 

The Laurentian had a long and discouraging struggle 
with debt, which at times threatened its very existence. 
When it was first started money enough was raised to 
keep it going for six months, but after this had been 
expended the slowness with which collections came in 
made it hard to get along. Then a stock company was 
formed and stock issued, by which means some money 
was raised. Lyman Ward, '92, who became business man- 
ager in June, 1891, and held this office until early in 1893, 
reduced the debt very materially. Owen Young, '94, 
who succeeded Mr. Ward, accomplished the long-desired 
result of clearing off the debt entirely. Although he took 
up the work in April, 1892, the commencement number 
was issued free of debt. Soon, however, a new debt was 
incurred, and it was not until 1902 that The Laurentian 
became strictly self-supporting. No small gratitude is 
due to Mr. Gilbert Manley, of the Plaindealer, on whose 
presses the magazine was printed, for his patience and 
helpfulness with this long insolvent concern. 

Much credit in connection with The Laurentian is due 
to Professor Gaines, through whose hands has passed most 
of the matter published in it except during the period from 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 1JJ 

1895 to 1900. His critical taste and sound judgment 
have served to forestall many crudities on the part of 
callow editors, and to maintain the dignity and enhance 
the usefulness of this representative college publication. 
The policy pursued has, without doubt, been the best for 
the interests of the University, and has produced the type 
of magazine of most interest and permanent value for its 
readers as a whole. For The Laurentian has well served 
the purpose of its founders. 

From the day on which the first number of this 
monthly came off the press, a great light was shed on all 
that relates to St. Lawrence. Here the "Age of Fable" 
may be considered to end, for henceforth there is an 
accurate contemporaneous record of all important occur- 
rences, and any detailed history of the subsequent develop- 
ment of the college must be largely drawn from its pages. 
Besides this invaluable record of events, it contains many 
poems and articles of unusual literary merit, — some of 
them by writers of recognized reputation in later years. 
In fiction, however, it has very rarely indulged, and it 
is believed that its self-restraint in this seductive field 
has contributed much to its dignity and high standing; 
for it is very evident that amateur undergraduate fiction 
cannot creditably compete with even the minor story mag- 
azines of the present day. So The Laurentian has held 
rather rigidly to its own special field, — all that pertains 
to St. Lawrence University, its students, its graduates, 
and its development. 

During the first twelve years of its existence, The 
Laurentian was issued as a thin, broad pamphlet, with a 
two-column page of about eleven by eight inches, each 
number usually containing about twelve pages of reading 
matter. In 1900, on the initiative of President Gunnison, 
in consultation with C. K. Gaines, '76, and Williston 
Manley, '88 (both intimately associated with the publica- 



178 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

tion of the college monthly from its inception), the material 
make-up of The Laurentian was completely changed. It 
assumed the form of an ordinary magazine, regularly con- 
taining about twenty-four pages of reading matter, each 
page about six by nine inches; the cover was now brown, 
with scarlet lettering, and the typography was made much 
more attractive. This form it has ever since retained. 

THE HILL NEWS 

During the later years of President Gunnison's admin- 
istration, the need of a college weekly was often discussed, 
— by the students with unquestioning enthusiasm, but 
by the older men with grave doubts, since they feared 
that such a publication would not be adequately sup- 
ported and could not be maintained with credit to the 
University. It was not until the spring of 191 1 that the 
project took a definite and practical form. 

The agitation which resulted in the founding of The 
Hill News began in the recently reorganized Press Asso- 
ciation, which at that time comprised a group of under- 
graduates of quite exceptional journalistic experience, 
enthusiasm, and ability. Among these H. B. Adsit, '12, 
was undoubtedly the leading spirit, and to him more than 
to any other one person the success of the undertaking 
was due. Prominent among the doubters of the advisa- 
bility of attempting a college weekly had been Professor 
C. K. Gaines, upon whom the general supervision of 
students' publications devolved. To him went Mr. 
Adsit, with well digested plans and specifications and a 
perfectly clear idea of what he wanted. What he wanted 
was a real newspaper. The professor became convinced 
that the scheme was feasible; also that the most favorable 
moment had arrived for establishing on a sound basis a 
really creditable college paper; and on his report to this 
effect to the faculty, the plans submitted by Mr. Adsit 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS I79 

were approved. Naturally Mr. Adsit was chosen as the 
first editor-in-chief; and with what resourcefulness and 
tireless energy he worked for the success of his paper, only 
those who were more or less behind the scenes can fully 
know. And he accomplished what he intended, — the 
inauguration of a real newspaper. 

The first issue of The Hill News bore the date, May 22, 
191 1. It was a modest four-page four-column paper, 
printed on the Commercial Advertiser presses, so good both 
in form and matter that it at once found favor with its 
constituency and justified its sponsors. So well did it 
succeed that, about two years later, beginning with the 
issue of September 29, 1913, it was enlarged to five columns 
on the initiative of R. B. Eldridge, '15, then editor-in-chief; 
and this size and style it has since maintained. It soon 
became very notably the mouthpiece of student sentiment, 
but has been unswervingly loyal to the highest interests of 
St. Lawrence. Like The Laurentian, it rendered efficient 
service in promoting the adoption of the Honor Code in 
191 3, and has been in many ways a helpful factor for the 
advancement of the college. 

A notable feature in the organization of The Hill News, 
which has proved very successful in its workings, is the 
system of "try-outs" for the various positions on the staff. 
The "cubs/' after a sufficient period of rather rigorous 
training which weeds out the less efficient, are given each 
a short period of service in more responsible places under 
the immediate supervision of their superiors in office. 
Their work is carefully graded on all the qualities essential 
to success in jounalistic work, and their eligibility for 
promotion is determined on this basis. 

GLEANINGS FROM THE CATALOGUE 

Although the College Catalogue is not an "under- 
graduate publication" — however much some of the earlier 



l8o SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

issues may suggest that idea — the close of this chapter 
affords the most convenient place for a brief sketch of its 
development from rather crude beginnings to its present 
form and compass, and for certain curious gleanings from 
its earlier pages. For these dry official compilations, filed 
away on a rarely visited shelf in Herring Library, when 
read in due sequence make up a document of no small 
human interest, to Laurentians at least, and do much to 
make real again the almost forgotten past. 

The first issue bears the date 1858-59, and consists of 
eight pages and a front cover. The College of Letters and 
Science had not yet been established, and beyond a state- 
ment that it was expected that the college would be opened 
in the near future there is no reference to it. The Theo- 
logical Department and the Academic Department — the 
latter a preparatory school — had two instructors, the 
Reverend J. S. Lee and the Reverend Ebenezer Fisher. 
Besides the names of the officers and instructors, this 
pamphlet contains the requisites for admission, the courses 
of study, the proud statement that there are "over four 
thousand volumes" in the library, and a little general 
information. 

There are no extant numbers for the years from i860 
to 1863, inclusive, and probably no catalogue was pub- 
lished. The issue of 1864-65 comprises twelve pages, and 
this is the earliest catalogue representing the college 
proper. The Reverend John S. Lee, "Principal and Pro- 
fessor of Ancient Languages," and John W. Clapp, "Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics and Natural Sciences," apparently 
made up the college faculty, and the Reverend Ebenezer 
Fisher, D.D., the faculty of the Theological School. The 
list of "Graduates and Students" includes the names 
of two graduates, nine undergraduate "Gentlemen" and 
eleven "Ladies." In the preparatory school are entered 
fifty-four names in the list headed "Ladies," and forty-nine 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS l8l 

in that headed "Gentlemen." One page each is devoted 
to "Course of Instruction," to a detailed list of the text- 
books used, to general information, and to "Rules and 
Regulations" — which last seem rather puerile now. The 
calendar appears in the middle of the catalogue. The 
tuition fees are quoted as nine dollars a term in the 
Academy. 

The issue dated 1869 is somewhat larger than its pred- 
ecessors, having twenty-four pages; it also shows con- 
siderable improvement in form and arrangement, and is 
noteworthy as the only issue of the catalogue which 
was printed in New York City. The Reverend Richmond 
Fisk was now president, and with Nehemiah White and 
the Reverend Moses M arston made up the faculty of the 
college proper, — assisted, however, by several under- 
graduate tutors, among whom were John Stocker Miller 
and Allen Eugene Kilby. The theological faculty now 
numbered three, Doctor J. S. Lee and the Reverend Orello 
Cone having been assigned to this department; and the 
number of theological students had reached a total of 
thirty-three against thirty-one college students in regular 
courses. It is stated that "Ladies are admitted to the 
University on the same terms as gentlemen, and on com- 
pleting either course of study receive corresponding 
degrees"; also that "Miss Doty will look after the health 
and comfort of lady students, and take special pains to 
aid them in finding pleasant and convenient boarding 
places in the village." Further, "Meritorious students 
are permitted to be absent for a period not exceeding 
twelve weeks for the purpose of teaching." Herring Library 
Hall "will be completed by the approaching commence- 
ment, or so nearly so as to be made the occasion of an 
address." In this catalogue for the first time the names 
of undergraduates are listed in classes. A detailed list 
of free scholarships indicates the schools for whose students 



l82 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

they are available, and is followed by an elaborate state- 
ment of the conditions under which they are granted. 
There is a list of five committees on examinations, most 
of the members of which were non-resident; presumably 
they were expected to visit Canton once each year for 
general examination purposes, the tests being in the main 
oral. 

The next number, 1870-71, is remarkable for its dis- 
play of the grotesque old college seal — not the design now 
in use, but something painfully resembling an ancient 
silver dollar. The number of college students is slightly 
increased, and each class-list has a whole page to itself, — 
although, particularly in the case of the Junior class of 
that year with only six names, the list looks distressingly 
small in the center of a large white space. This number 
contains the announcements of the old Law Department, 
which had just sprung into existence, destined to a very 
short career. It had two instructors, Stillman Foote, 
Surrogate of St. Lawrence County, and Leslie W. Russell, 
District Attorney of the County. There were then, in 
this department, six graduates and eleven students. 

The catalogue of 1871-72 is the first which was printed 
in Canton and on the Plaindealer presses; very few after 
this date bear any other imprint. Most of the early 
numbers are characterized by bordered pages and typo- 
graphical flourishes, but the issue of 1872-73 exceeds 
all others in this respect. The pages are tinted and dec- 
orated with scrolls and flowers; the covers are in various 
colors, mainly pink and blue. The Reverend A. G. Gaines 
was now president. The name of C. K. Gaines appears 
in the Freshman class, and that of W. B. Gunnison among 
the Sophomores. 

The catalogue for 1873-74 1S very similar in appearance 
to its immediate predecessors, but the number issued in 
1874-75 shows a marked change. The red and blue covers 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 183 

disappear, most of the ornamental designs and flourishes 
are omitted, and plain type is used. This improvement 
continues, until in the catalogue of 1879-80 page borders, 
flourishes, and elaborate type are completely discarded, 
and a plain, fairly correct book-style adopted. Bound up 
with this number appears the first General Catalogue, then 
called the " Triennial. " Professor W. B. Gunnison became 
editor of the catalogue about this time, and this probably 
is the first number of which he had charge. He called in 
Professor C. K. Gaines as his assistant in this work; and 
although the catalogue was considerably larger than for- 
merly, they used to make up the copy in one evening. 

In 1885, when Professor Gunnison resigned his pro- 
fessorship, Professor Gaines became catalogue editor. 
Small changes were made from time to time, and gradually 
the volume was enlarged and improved until a very high 
standard was established. During the absence of Doctor 
Gaines for a period of nearly five years, from 1895 to 
1900, the work of editing the catalogue devolved upon 
Professor Hardie, who modernized and improved it in 
many particulars. In 1902, soon after his return to St. 
Lawrence, Doctor Gaines was again made catalogue editor, 
and discharged the duties of that office until 191 3, when 
Professor Hardie again assumed it. 

The 1903-4 catalogue was increased by the addition 
of a section for the Brooklyn Law School; the State School 
of Agriculture first appeared in the issue of 1907-08. For- 
merly each department of the University had a catalogue 
editor, appointed by its faculty. In more recent years 
it has been found advisable to put the supervision of the 
work entirely into the hands of one man, and the cata- 
logue editor is appointed by the Executive Board of the 
University. 

Many of the rules found in the earlier catalogues, some 
of which remained in force even in the eighties, would 



I84 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

seem peculiarly galling to the modern student. Those 
alleged good old days when every one did as he pleased 
and held himself responsible to nobody, live only in the 
student's fancy and in the exaggerated, often imaginative, 
reminiscences of alumni, as a glance at the records will 
show. 

In the first catalogue, that of the year 1858-59, is found 
this rule, applicable to theological students only: "All 
students are required to work at some manual employment 
two hours in each working day, and the proceeds of their 
labor goes to their benefit. ,, Evidently the founders of 
the University believed that physical and mental labor 
should be judiciously combined. This view was especially 
held by Horace Greeley, an early friend of the University, 
who is said to have sent an invoice of hoes, or shovels, 
for the use of the young theologues in the manner above 
indicated. The students in the Academic Department, 
the precursor of the College of Letters and Science of 
today, were "allowed the privilege" of doing such work. 
Although there are some traditions of the digging up of 
great stones on the campus by able-bodied young theo- 
logues, of subsequent fame, in pursuance of this rule, the 
one thing certain is that the ordinance soon lapsed, for 
it appears in no subsequent issue of the catalogue. 

From the very first the following rule was strictly 
enforced: "Students are required regularly to attend the 
church of their choice. " A certain number of absences 
brought an admonition to attend more regularly, and if 
this was disregarded more stringent measures were adopted. 

Not until 1870 does it appear to have been deemed 
necessary to formulate a body of rules to govern the 
student's conduct, but in that year a formidable series of 
regulations appeared, part of which are quoted below. 

The first two rules state that any student not showing 
due respect to the faculty and its rules will be punished by 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 185 

expulsion if the case be sufficiently flagrant, and that all 
damage to college or town property will be punished in 
proportion to the offense. 

"Rule 3. Every student of the University, in the 
hours of study, shall abstain from hallooing, singing, 
loud talking, playing a musical instrument, and other 
disorderly noises in the College or around the College 
Buildings." 

"Rule 4. No student shall go out of town, so as to 
be absent from any college exercise, without leave first 
obtained from the President or some member of the 
Faculty." 

"Rule 5," after enumerating all the possible tempta- 
tions which a country village like Canton could offer to 
a student, assigns as the penalty, if any offender should 
fail to reform after due admonition, that he shall be sent 
home. 

"Rule 6" declares all students responsible for their 
conduct during vacation no less than in term-time. 

"Rule 7. Study hours shall be from the first recitation 
hour in the morning until dinner time; and from the first 
recitation bell in the afternoon until 5 o'clock; and from 
8 to 10 o'clock in the evening." 

The above rules remained in force with little change 
until 1886, when they were stricken out and a short 
paragraph embodying the substance of "Rule 5" was 
substituted. This rule has remained practically the same, 
even to details of wording, to this day. Several of the 
regulations became of no effect when the theological stu- 
dents ceased to use the upper floors of the college building 
as a dormitory, — an arrangement which ceased at about 
the above mentioned date. 

During the whole period from 1880 to 1890 the follow- 
ing rule was in force: "One afternoon of each week is set 
apart for Rhetorical Exercises, at which all students, at 



l86 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

frequent and stated periods, are required to present ora- 
tions, translations, essays, or readings. In addition to 
these public exercises frequent private rehearsals and 
careful personal drill are given each student." This was 
at a time when the total number of students was small, 
and so each had to appear frequently. That the rule 
was strictly kept is shown by the fact that no alumnus 
can vouch for its ever being evaded. All the tricks of 
the shrewdest shirk only served to postpone the evil day, 
and even in cases of illness the essays were required later 
in the term. 

There was one unwritten law which should not be 
passed unnoticed. Boating, then as now, was a favorite 
recreation; but all students were required to be off the 
river before sun-down. The announcement of this rule 
by President Gaines every spring term during his adminis- 
tration was an annual event; and, no matter how balmy 
the weather, spring was not felt to have really come until 
he had called attention to this rule at morning prayers. 



UNDERGRADUATE PUBLICATIONS 187 



OUR LITTLE LIST 

Anonymous, published by Senior class in June, 1886. 

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found, 
We've got a little list — we've got a little list — 
Of College Hill offenders who might well be underground, 
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed. 

There's the man who will forever raise a racket in the hall, 

And the demon who invented the seven-forty call; 

And the wanderers at midnight who wantonly did seize 

The off' rings of the Betas, those newly planted trees; 

All boys who pore till midnight over High-Low-Jack or Whist, — 

They'd none of 'em be missed — they'd none of 'em be missed. 

And there's the nice young lady wearing locklets pompadour, 

And the elocutionist — we've got her on the list — 

And the saint who when it's time to cut would wait two minutes 

more, — 
They never would be missed — they never would be missed. 

The students in the reading-room who fail the rules to mind, 

And likewise the directors, to negligence inclined; 

And the youth who talks of "kicking" when the kind professors 

ask 
The doing of a slighted and a little extra task; 
And all the girls who borrow knives and never will desist, — 
/ don't think they'd be missed — I'm sure they'd not be missed. 

The hymn that's dragged in chapel to a weather-beaten tune, 
Likewise the pianist — we've got them on the list; 
And boys who cut their classes just to give themselves a fling, — 
Their names are on the list — we're sure that they were missed. 



l88 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

And effervescent Freshmen who at night display their wit 
Distributing green pigment and imagining they 9 re "it" ; 
And the shirk who copies out his cribs with twice the zeal and 

care 
That the very best of lessons would cost him to prepare: 
But indeed it doesn't matter whom we put upon the list, 
For they'd none of them be missed — they'd none of them be 

missed. 



CHAPTER XII 
ORATORY AND MUSIC 

PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS — THE SOPHOMORE ASSEMBLY — 
PRIZE CONTESTS — LOCAL DEBATES — INTERCOLLEGIATE 

DEBATES SINGING IN EARLY DAYS GLEE CLUBS 

ST. CECILIA CLUB BANJO AND MANDOLIN CLUBS 

COLLEGE ORCHESTRA MUSICAL COMPOSITION. 

FROM the earliest period, even in the days when 
St. Lawrence was scarcely yet a college, the de- 
velopment of skill in public speaking received 
considerable attention. The methods used were primitive, 
but fairly effective; each student was required to prepare 
several essays and orations each term, and these were 
delivered before the faculty and the whole body of under- 
graduates, who were assembled for these "rhetoricals" 
one afternoon each week, as has been noted in a previous 
chapter. The best feature of this system was the careful 
drill and criticism often given at "rehearsals." Still more 
effective, probably, were the debates and other public 
exercises of the Thelomathesian Society, already adverted 
to. Tree Holiday exercises also furnished an incitement 
to ambitious speakers, and college politics often afforded 
good training in plain practical oratory as a by-product. 
As a result of all these influences and opportunities, it is 
certainly a fact that speakers of remarkable ability were 
developed in those early years. Foster L. Backus, '73, is 
a typical instance, yet only one among many that might 
be cited. 



I90 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 
THE SOPHOMORE ASSEMBLY 

The advent of fraternity life proved unfavorable to the 
Thelomathesian, and the meetings of this society lost 
most of their value and interest during the eighties. In 
1886-87, feeling that important elements of training for 
efficiency in the practical work of life were becoming 
neglected, Professor C. K. Gaines introduced a course in 
parliamentary practice and debate, in which the class was 
organized and conducted as an assembly, commonly called 
the "Sophomore Assembly," on a plan which is clearly 
outlined (though somewhat generalized) in the constitution 
and by-laws appended to "The New Cushing's Manual," 
published by Professor Gaines many years later, in 191 2. 
The idea was then wholly novel; the students took up the 
work with great zest, and the results were soon apparent 
in their notably increased ability to think and speak on 
their feet. Oratorical flourishes were not encouraged, but 
a plain, direct, forceful style inculcated, which was quite 
in keeping with the best traditions of St. Lawrence and 
became a marked characteristic of its graduates. In the 
earlier days, also, there were often keen parliamentary con- 
tests in this organization, and here not a few St. Lawrence 
men first exhibited a skill and resourcefulness which has 
served them well in larger fields. Later, especially after 
1900, the effectiveness of this training was somewhat im- 
paired by the dilution resulting from larger classes. 

PRIZE CONTESTS 

A prominent oratorical feature during the eighties was 
a series of prize contests held each spring. All the mem- 
bers of the Freshman class competed publicly for the 
Russell prizes in oratory; all Sophomores, in like manner, 
for the Rich prizes. These were contests in declamation, 
and all participants were faithfully drilled by Professor 
Henry Priest — a heavy task. The Juniors competed for 



ORATORY AND MUSIC I9I 

the Parker prizes with original orations, and the criticism 
of these, with the rehearsals, fell to the share of Professor 
C. K. Gaines, — who also had charge of the Senior ora- 
tions delivered at commencement. Up to the year 1890 
all members of the graduating class spoke from the com- 
mencement platform, and were subjected to protracted 
and painstaking drill in preparation for this. Doubtless 
it was good training, but it was not always relished by the 
recipients. The class of 1890 numbered nineteen; of 
necessity a limit was imposed, and only eight were ap- 
pointed to deliver orations. Forthwith, to the astonish- 
ment of the faculty, a great outcry arose; all, it appeared, 
wanted to "do their bit." The change, however, was 
inevitable, and subsequently a limitation of the number 
of speakers to four or five was accepted without protest. 

A curious incident — yet perhaps characteristic of the 
time — is remembered in connection with one of the earlier 
contests in speaking. One of the competitors, who had 
received the second prize, was so displeased with the 
award that a few days later he arose in chapel, delivered 
a short speech in which he accused the judges of unfairness, 
and returned the prize. For this disorderly procedure he 
was promptly put under suspension until he should make 
an acceptable apology, as publicly as he had made his 
protest and in the same place. At first it seemed to him 
easier to leave college than to do this; but when he learned 
that he was not to be required to take back the prize, but 
merely to apologize for his conduct, he finally brought 
himself to comply with the demand, and ultimately became 
one of the most loyal of alumni. 

None of the above-mentioned prize contests was pro- 
vided for by endowment, and they all lapsed with the 
eighties. In 1896, during the administration of President 
J. C. Lee, prizes for the "best recitation of standard 
selections," to be competed for by the college women, 



192 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

were offered by Mr. Norman Anthony, of Galesburg, 
Illinois. The preparatory training for this contest was 
given by Mrs. J. C. Lee, an expert in that line. These 
prizes also were discontinued after a few years. 

Finally, in 1909, the Honorable Vasco P. Abbott, *6j 
— now President of the Board of Trustees — endowed 
the Worth Pickett Abbott Memorial Prize in Oratory in 
memory of his son, a member of the class of 1900, who 
died in 1906. The contest is limited to members of the 
Sophomore class, and is held on the last Friday in April 
each year; it is open to men and women alike. This 
prize was awarded in 1910 to Louis David Schwartz, 
in 191 1 to William Washington Trench, in 191 2 to Amanda 
Pellens, in 191 3 to Louise Klein, in 1914 to Donald 
Butterworth Cheetham, and in 191 5 to Harold Bartlett 
Leonard. 

LOCAL DEBATES 

Although public speaking in some form has always 
been cultivated at St. Lawrence and public debates were 
not infrequent in the early days, after the decay of the 
Thelomathesian Society during the eighties there ensued a 
long period in which little or nothing was done in the line 
of debating apart from the class-room requirement in 
connection with the study of parliamentary law. The 
strain of the crisis through which the college was then 
passing may account for this in a measure, for under the 
more encouraging conditions of President Hervey's admin- 
istration signs of reviving interest soon began to appear. 
In November, 1892, under the stimulus of an exciting 
political campaign, the "Democratic Club'' and the 
"Republican Club" held a notable debate in the Town 
Hall — apparently the first public debate for many years. 
Owen D. Young, '94, and Professor L. B. Fisher, of the 
Theological School, were the presiding officers; H. C. 



ORATORY AND MUSIC I93 

Spurr, '94, and J. F. McKinney, '93, spoke for the Demo- 
crats, and W. J. Deans, '94, and Lyman Ward, '92, for 
the Republicans. It is recorded that "each speaker was 
limited to forty-five minutes, and each occupied the whole 
of the allotted time." Yet "the hall was well filled, and 
the audience remained attentive to the end." No formal 
decision was rendered in this contest. 

What was probably the first Freshman-Sophomore 
debate was held in March, 1893. The Sophomores were 
represented by G. A. Kratzer and E. A. Adler; the 
Freshmen by W. W. Read and F. J. Arnold. Here again 
the time-allowance was liberal, — "thirty minutes for 
each speaker, with ten additional minutes for the summing 
up." The judges were President Hervey, Professor Henry 
Priest, and Professor C. K. Gaines, and the Freshmen won 
the award. In 1894 a similar contest was held in April, 
and in The Laurentian it is already called "the annual 
Freshman-Sophomore debate." W. A. Storm, Antoinette 
J. Foster, and G. F. Wilder spoke for the Sophomores, 
and G. E. Cooley, Emma C. Robinson, and Ernest Robin- 
son for the Freshmen. The Sophomores won in this 
instance. Thus this class debating contest became a 
regular feature of the college life, continued to the present 
day. Various other competitions of a similar character 
are recorded at this time; for example, a "Prohibition 
Oratorical Contest" conducted by the theologues. Alto- 
gether, the closing years of President Hervey's administra- 
tion were marked by exceptional activity in this field, 
though as yet no debate had ever been held with the 
representatives of another college, and such an exploit 
was only talked of in the vaguest fashion. 

INTERCOLLEGIATE DEBATING 

The first effective step toward intercollegiate debating 
was the organization of the Gaines Club in February, 



194 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

1902. The leading spirits in this movement were Louis 
Heaton Pink and Clarence Russell Skinner, both debaters 
of exceptional ability, who with Edward Butler Saunders, 
also an able speaker, had just previously won the award 
in the Freshman-Sophomore debate. The moment was 
favorable; the material available for such an organization 
was decidedly above average, and the interest was pro- 
portionate. A contest was soon arranged with repre- 
sentatives of the University of Vermont, and the first 
intercollegiate debate ever held in Canton was conducted 
in the Town Hall on the evening of May 23. The question 
was: "Resolved, That the Fifteenth Amendment to the 
United States Constitution has proved unwise." St. 
Lawrence upheld the affirmative and was defeated. The 
team comprised George S. Van Schaick, ex-'o5, C. R. 
Skinner, '04, and L. H. Pink, '04, with John W. Hannon, 
'05, as alternate. 

In the second intercollegiate debate, also arranged by 
the Gaines Club, the University of Vermont was again 
the opponent and again was victorious. This contest 
was held at Burlington, April 21, 1903. The team con- 
sisted of L. H. Pink, C. R. Skinner, and J. W. Hannon, 
with M. H. Jencks, '05, as alternate. The defeat of St. 
Lawrence was attributed in large part to unskillful formu- 
lation of the question: "Resolved, That the national 
government adopt the system of compulsory arbitration 
in all disputes between corporations and their employees. " 
This wording made success practically impossible for 
the upholders of the affirmative; but the fault was their 
own. 

In January, 1904, a challenge for a debating contest 
was received from the Middlebury College team. The 
Gaines Club, meanwhile, had very nearly fallen into a 
state of "innocuous desuetude," yet it rallied to the 
occasion and sent out a team consisting of L. H. Pink, 



ORATORY AND MUSIC I95 

C. R. Skinner, and J. W. Hannon, — all experienced 
debaters. The debate was held at Middlebury late in 
March, and St. Lawrence won. The superiority of the 
St. Lawrence men in real extemporaneous speaking was 
especially manifest on this occasion, and contributed much 
to their success. But after this final effort the Gaines 
Club lapsed completely, the members who were its chief 
strength and inspiration having departed with their well- 
earned degrees. To them great credit is due. Says The 
Laurentian of July, 1904: "To Pink and Skinner, the 
ablest debaters we have had for many a year, we owe the 
organization of our debating and dramatic societies." 
None were found to take their places, and for several years 
nothing more is heard of intercollegiate debating. 

The revival came with the advent of William Wash- 
ington Trench, who matriculated in 1909 and soon proved 
himself, out of all question, the ablest man in this field 
since the graduation of Pink. It is worthy of note that 
both these debaters had received their preparatory training 
in the same school — the well-known Erasmus . Hall High 
School, of which Walter B. Gunnison, '75, has long been 
principal. Through the initiative of Mr. Trench a new 
debating society was soon organized, and a debate was 
arranged with Middlebury College which was held at 
Canton, December 10, 1910. St. Lawrence was repre- 
sented by H. E. Papenberg, '12, L. D. Schwartz, '12, and 
W. W. Trench, '13, and won the award. 

A debate with Union College was held at Canton, 
January 18, 191 2. St. Lawrence was represented by W. 
W. Trench, '13, W. W. Huntley, '12, and H. F. Landon, 
'13, with L. D. Schwartz, '12, as alternate. The award 
went to Union. 

A debate with Cornell, held at Canton, February 8, 
I 9 I 3> was won by the St. Lawrence team, consisting of 
W. W. Trench, '13, H. F. Landon, '13, and H. Keeler* 



I96 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

'15, with C. J. Peet, '15, as alternate. Victory was largely- 
due to the remarkable force and effectiveness of the closing 
speech of Trench. On April 21 of the same year St. 
Lawrence was defeated by Colgate in a debate held at 
Hamilton. The team in this case consisted of H. Keeler, 
'15, H. E. Foote, '16, and H. F. Landon, '13; Trench, 
having completed his college work in February, was no 
longer available. Another victory was won by Colgate 
in a debate held at Hamilton, April 24, 1914, St. Lawrence 
being represented by H. Keeler, '15, G. A. Manley, '16, 
and J. Wells, '16, with D. G. Sherwin, '15, as alternate. 
In 191 5 Colgate was successful for the third time in a 
debate held at Hamilton, March 8. In this instance the 
youthfulness and inexperience of the St. Lawrence team, 
two of its members being Freshmen, was a serious handi- 
cap; it consisted of G. A. Manley, f i6, F. Gunnison, '18, 
and L. Iversen, '18, with H. T. Kearns, '15, as alternate. 
For these rather numerous defeats the St. Lawrence 
debaters have much excuse. The overworked college 
faculty have been able to give them very little direct 
training in this field, and much of the time they have 
lacked the stimulus of adequate support from the general 
student body. Whatever they have accomplished has 
been almost entirely by their own unaided efforts. 

Just as this sketch is completed, St. Lawrence has 
again been defeated by Colgate, but less decisively. The 
team, consisting of D. B. Cheetham, '16, F. Gunnison, 
'18, and V. G. Dodds, '19, with W. Fletcher, '18, as 
alternate, gave evidence of thorough preparation and made 
an excellent showing. They had also received as much 
aid and encouragement from members of the faculty as it 
was possible to give under existing conditions — Instructor 
C. H. Gaines, 'oo, being especially helpful. Two supple- 
mentary teams have been organized for more effective 
practice, and as this volume goes to press there is every 



ORATORY AND MUSIC K)J 

indication that debating will speedily assume its proper 
place among the college activities and receive adequate 
support. 

SINGING IN EARLY DAYS 

The history of music at St. Lawrence presents an 
alternating series of brilliant and barren periods. No 
attention has ever been paid to this subject in arranging 
the curriculum, — at least, since the earliest academic 
days; so whatever has been achieved in this line has been 
due almost entirely to the energy and initiative of certain 
groups of students. There was really no college musical 
organization worthy of the name until the early eighties. 
There had been good singing and good singers — Foster 
Backus, '73, and W. B. Gunnison, '75, stand unexcelled 
in that line; and there had been sporadic performances of 
varying quality, the most notable being the presentation 
of Pinafore, an account of which is given in connection 
with dramatics. And still earlier, in December, 1877, four 
college students calling themselves, without any special 
warrant, the "College Quartette," gave an "old folks 
concert " for the Thelomathesian Society. This was so 
well received that they induced four others to join them 
and undertook to give concerts out of town for the purpose 
of buying a piano to replace the "cottage organ" then in 
use in the chapel. This double quartette, composed of 
Florence J. Lee, '82, Cammie P. Woods, Estelle M. Brees, 
Mary L. Grace, and Frederick S. Lee, of the class of '78, 
George W. Kent, Gilbert F. Barnes, and Frederick W. 
Bailey, of the Theological School, proceeded to DeKalb 
Junction on January 25, 1878, and gave a spirited though 
somewhat naive performance to a small but enthusiastic 
audience. This ended their career; but it is worthy of 
note as the first musical tour attempted at St. Lawrence. 
The program for this performance, "from the press of 



I98 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Gunnison and Witherbee," was really a clever composition, 
albeit violently archaic. Long afterwards, in The Lauren- 
tian for January, 1890, appeared a somewhat detailed 
account of this exploit, written by one of the participants. 

The "St. Lawrence Quintette" was the first musical 
organization which really carried the name of St. Lawrence 
to the outside world. Its beginnings are hard to trace. 
On the program sheet of a concert given in Canton on 
July 16, 1 88 1, appears the statement, "The quintette is 
composed of college students who have sung quite success- 
fully at various places during the past two years. " This 
would place the date of organization as early as 1879. 
It would be interesting to know something about those 
"various places." The prime mover in this organization 
was Lawson Carter Rich, '82, who appears on the program 
mentioned above as "Business Manager." But he was 
much more: he was a fine singer, full of enthusiasm and 
"infinite variety." The other members were, George S. 
Conkey, '83, Richard E. Sykes, '83, William Fitzgibbons, 
'82, and Thomas Conolly, a young man of Canton who 
was not a college student. 

With the graduation of Rich and Fitzgibbons, in 1882, 
this quintette was dissolved. But Conkey and Sykes were 
still in college, Clement M. Baker, '85, a tenor singer and 
competent musician, was then a Sophomore, and Augustus 
B. Church, '86, who possessed a wonderful voice, had 
matriculated. These four soon formed a quartette which 
sang with great success at many local entertainments, but 
there is no record of their having made a tour. 

During the next six years there appears to have been 
no regular organization; but there was great interest in 
singing, and the whole student body, inspired and led by 
such singers as Clement M. Baker, who after graduation 
had been made an instructor, and Charles S. Brewer, 
'91, made the college noted for its singing. Every func- 



ORATORY AND MUSIC 1 99 

tion, from the most formal president's reception to the 
dancing of the "College Lancers," ended with a sing. 
Every student knew every song, and at alumni dinners, 
at all banquets, dances, and social entertainments, on the 
river or wherever any group of students were gathered — 
outside of the class-room — they lifted the roof or rung 
the welkin with "Hark I hear a Voice," "Seeing Nellie 
Home," "The Scarlet and the Brown" (every verse of it), 
"Jingle Bells," " Polly-Wolly-Doodle," and the like. 
There was never any need of collecting and arranging a 
group to "help out" the singing for any occasion — it 
never needed help. The singing during refreshments at 
the formal balls was a feature which always delighted 
guests and called forth their admiration. The report of 
any student function always ended with the statement 
that "the evening closed with the usual sing." 

It was during this period that society and class calls 
received their greatest development, and the custom of 
giving serenades became so established as to remain to 
this day a characteristic feature of the college life. But 
times change. President Hervey in his inaugural address 
(which every student should read) said in speaking of the 
fiftieth anniversary of the college (now past, but at 
that time still far in the future): "Some of us will be 
old men and women then, with bent forms and wrinkled 
faces and gray, thinned locks. But we shall come back 
with joy in our hearts and sunshine in our eyes, and with 
a great gladness in our voices we shall shout and sing the 
songs of our happy youth." But if any of the alumni 
of the eighties had actually attempted to "shout and sing 
the songs of our happy youth" on that occasion, it is 
probable that the undergraduates would have regarded 
them with bewilderment and pained surprise. The old 
singing custom, however, is now being revived, especially 
under the form of the "Sing Night" at commencement, 



200 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

when the students and alumni gather around the steps of 
Herring Library in the early evening and sing the college 
songs, old and new. Although there has been much 
mourning over the comparatively unmusical character of 
later years, at no time have the college songs been for- 
gotten, nor has the custom of serenading ever lapsed; 
and in the matter of "yells," spontaneous, artistic, and 
systematic, there has never been a moment of silence in 
the whole history of St. Lawrence. 

GLEE CLUBS 

To recur to the earlier date, in 1888 there arose some 
discussion over organizing a glee club, and in the fall of 
that year four men calling themselves the "Beta Theta 
Pi Quartette," sang occasionally at college entertainments. 
On October 25, 1888, they sang at an entertainment given 
in Thelomathesian to raise funds for the purchase of new 
singing books for use in the chapel. In the following year, 
1889, Charles Snow Brewer, '91, organized a regular glee 
club, the other members being Professor Baker, '85, 
Schuyler C. Hodge, '90, and Frank L. Bryant, '91. This 
quartette gave a program of college songs at Colton during 
the same year. Up to this time the music had consisted 
almost exclusively of singing; but in 1890 Mr. Hodge 
organized the first banjo and guitar club, which in com- 
bination with the glee club formed an organization worthy 
of public interest. Thus at last, after a period of approxi- 
mately eight years, St. Lawrence was again adequately 
represented in the field of music. 

The combined clubs numbered about fifteen members 
— a small number in comparison with some similar clubs 
elsewhere — but their work was of an order to command 
wide recognition and make them worthy rivals of like 
organizations in other colleges. They gave entertain- 
ments at Carthage, Lowville, and Gouverneur; but their 



ORATORY AND MUSIC 201 

most notable success was the concert given at Easthamp- 
ton, Long Island, in 1889, under the management of 
Brewer. The account given in The Star, a local newspaper, 
was somewhat ingenuous but most laudatory. Mr. Brewer 
is called "the star of the evening," Mr. Hodge's rendering 
of Sebastopol was "something that an amateur may well 
be proud of," and E. A. Thornton, '91, (who probably 
substituted for Professor Baker) was characterized as 
"the best everyday, go-as-you-please singer we have ever 
heard." In February, 1891, the clubs were reorganized; 
mandolins were added, and the glee club appeared once 
more as the "Beta Theta Pi Quartette." On the occasion 
of its first public concert, given March 6, 1891, the mem- 
bers appearing were Charles S. Brewer, '91, Professor C. 
M. Baker, '85, Arthur R. Gledhill, '93, and Schuyler C. 
Hodge, '90. During the Easter recess of 1891 the clubs 
gave six out-of-town concerts, visiting Lowville, Carthage, 
Antwerp, Potsdam, Gouverneur, and Waddington. These 
entertainments were unvaryingly successful, and if they 
did not fill anybody's coffers with gold they achieved a 
much more permanent and important result; for they 
advertised the college in the most effective and creditable 
way, and added much to its reputation for sending out 
men of high character. 

On November 21, 1891, occurred what was called in 
the printed reports "the most important event of the 
season." This was the concert given in the Town Hall 
at Canton under the management and inspiration of 
Lyman Ward, '92, business manager of The Laurentian y 
for the benefit of what was then the sole undergraduate 
publication. The Banjo and Mandolin Club and the Beta 
Theta Pi Quartette were assisted on this occasion by 
"Livingston's String Quintette" and by "Father Fitz- 
gerald" of Norwood. The performance was an unqualified 
success. The audience was enthusiastic; Mr. Ward was 



202 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

called before the curtain and made a characteristic speech; 
and, what was most gratifying, a glorious total of ninety- 
eight dollars was realized for the relief of the college 
magazine. Then — nothing more is heard of the Banjo 
and Mandolin Club, nor of the Beta Theta Pi Quartette. 
The leading members were graduated, and thereupon the 
whole organization disintegrated. In The Laurentian for 
February, 1892, six months after the noteworthy achieve- 
ment above recorded, appears the plaintive query: "Why 
cannot St. Lawrence have a glee club?" In November of 
this same year, however, the Banjo Club was reorganized 
under the leadership of Benjamin F. Davis, ex-' 96. The 
other members were Arthur P. Gledhill, '93, Charles H. 
Vail, T.S. '92, Nathan F. Giffin, '95, Vernon E. Taylor, 
'93, Francis E. Van Deveer, '95, and L. K. Devendorf, 
special student. There is no record of any glee club or 
quartette at this time. The club appeared first at an 
entertainment given in Miner Hall in connection with a 
Universalist church fair in December, 1892, and a con- 
temporary account says it made "a creditable showing." 
In May of the following year, 1893, the club played at a 
public meeting of the Cheethamnian Society in Ogdensburg 
and was well received, the local papers announcing that 
the players at once became great favorites and were 
warmly greeted whenever they appeared. The club then 
settled down to regular practice preparatory to the trip 
which was planned for the week following Easter, 1894. 
This was arranged to include concerts at Mexico, Fulton, 
Baldwinsville, Adams, and Gouverneur, and was carried 
out according to schedule except in the case of Gouverneur. 
At length, in December, 1894, more than two years 
after the Banjo Club had been reorganized, the Glee Club 
was revived under the directorship of Frank B. Spaulding, 
'95, with Chellis A. Austin, ex-'98, Nathan F. Giffin, '95, 
Francis E. Van Deveer, '95, Arthur B. Joy, '98, George 



ORATORY AND MUSIC 203 

E. Cooley, '97, Frank J. Arnold, '96, James H. Gannon, 
ex-'98, John G. Logan, '95, Lorenzo D. Case, '95, Arthur 
Storm, '96, and Frederic T. Nelson, T.S. '95, making up 
the membership. From December to the following spring 
both clubs practiced assiduously, and as a result were able 
to make a tour so successful that it brought peculiar 
honor and recognition to the college. A detailed account 
of this trip was published in The Laurentian for May, 
1895, wherein are set forth many amusing and some rather 
trying incidents, — such as being obliged to wait for a 
delayed train in a pouring rain outside the carefully locked 
door of the station at Richville; being held up at Adams 
through failure to receive the return tickets; having to 
tune pianos, or sing without any; and being forced to 
travel in "dress-suits" because of lack of time to make a 
change. It was "all in the day's work" and taken in 
good part. In the article above cited the chief emphasis 
is laid upon the good opinion created in favor of the 
college and the impression left in every place visited that 
St. Lawrence men are gentlemen. 

ST. CECILIA CLUB 

Thus far no mention has been made of the part taken 
by the women of the college in matters musical. There 
was never any lack of musical ability among them, but 
their field hitherto had been for the most part restricted 
to participation in the general tunefulness and occasional 
performances within the college. But in March, 1895, a 
few college women under the guidance of Miss Frances 
Mathews, a skillful musician, organized the St. Cecilia 
Club, and practiced to such effect that they were able, a 
month later, to give a successful concert in the Town Hall 
at Canton. Among the soloists in this performance, 
Miss Marguerite Liotard, '98, and Miss Alice Mills, 'oo, 
are mentioned with special commendation. This club 



204 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

united with the men's clubs to give a "Senior Class Con- 
cert" at commencement; and this proved a noteworthy 
occasion. On Tuesday evening, June 24, 1895, tne nau< 
was packed to its utmost capacity by a throng eager to 
hear these much praised amateurs, and the concert was 
pronounced one of the finest ever given in Canton. Two 
evenings later the St. Cecilia Club furnished music at the 
wedding of Florence J. Lee, '82, — and those who heard 
and saw them will not forget the beauty and dignity and 
noble music of the procession which preceded the bridal 
party. Then, according to the fashion of musical clubs 
at St. Lawrence, after this brilliant performance nothing 
more is heard of the St. Cecilia Club. 

BANJO AND MANDOLIN CLUBS 

The year 1896, however, finds the banjo and glee clubs 
in a flourishing condition, though the personnel is naturally 
somewhat changed. George E. Cooley, '97, had become 
business manager, and under his efficient direction the 
clubs flourished and made a more extended trip than any 
hitherto attempted. They were gone two weeks, giving 
concerts in Richville, Dexter, Adams, Middleport, Lock- 
port, Victor, Clifton Springs, Watertown, and Gouverneur. 
At every place they met enthusiastic audiences, and their 
work compared very favorably with that of other college 
glee clubs. At that time this was considered the most 
noteworthy achievement in the history of undergraduate 
activities at St. Lawrence, and The Laurentian for April, 
1896, commenting upon it in an editorial speaks as follows: 
"The University is justly proud of the Glee and Banjo 
Club. From all sides comes unstinted praise for the 
excellence of the club and the gentlemanly conduct of its 
members. We welcome them back with the feeling that 
they have done good work for the University and deserve 
great credit for it." 



ORATORY AND MUSIC 205 

It is somewhat difficult now to realize how important — 
indeed how remarkable — this work really was, unless 
some emphasis is laid upon the matter. It should be 
remembered that all this was accomplished in the days of 
a much smaller St. Lawrence, when the total registration 
of undergraduates scarcely amounted to one hundred, and 
of that number not many had ever received any special 
education in music. No opportunity for such instruction 
was offered in the college, and none could be obtained in 
the town; only by dint of sheer pluck, native talent, and, 
above all, devotion to their college, did they achieve a 
success not merely relative but positive, taking second 
place to no similar organization in the State. The passage 
above quoted from The Laurentian is a simple, unexagger- 
ated expression of the facts. 

In April, 1896, this club, assisted by Miss Marguerite 
Liotard, '98, gave a concert in the Town Hall at Canton 
which was enthusiastically received, and finally, May 14, 
1896, climaxed the season's triumphs with a great concert 
at Ogdensburg. Thirty of the leading ladies of that city 
were patronesses, and they tendered a reception and dance 
to the players after the performance. It was before the 
day of automobiles, but fifty people drove over to Ogdens- 
burg to attend. 

After so brilliant and profitable a career extending 
over two years, it seems strange that in 1897 the musical 
clubs ceased all work and made no plans for a trip. But 
membership in such organizations is necessarily brief, and 
the make-up fluctuating. This apparent lack of enterprise 
was due chiefly to the loss of the leaders and some of the 
best musicians by graduation. In the fall of 1898, how- 
ever, after something over a year's lapse, both clubs were 
reorganized and were soon hard at work in preparation 
for the usual Easter trip. In November they gave a 
trial concert in the Town Hall, at which both clubs demon- 



206 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

strated that St. Lawrence still had sufficient musical talent 
to maintain her now well established position in this field. 
The Glee Club at this time consisted of Wight V. Abbott, 
'oo, Rufus H. Dix, T.S. 'oi, Leon R. Smith, 'oo, Samuel 
H. Cook, ex-'o2, John D. Stark, 'oi, Ledyard C. Cross* 
ex-'oc, Harry W. Reed, T.S. '99, Julien P. Heath, '01, 
Leland J. Farmer, '00, Frank Ainsworth, ex-'oo, Edson R. 
Miles, '00, and Robert S. Waterman, '01. The Banjo 
Club was made up of Earl W. Scripter, '01, Ledyard C. 
Cross, ex-'oo, Leon R. Smith, '00, Clarence H. Gaines, 
'00, Rufus H. Dix, T.S. '01, Amin Beder, '99, H. Ware 
Barnum, '99, Bernard D. Butler, '02, Royden Williamson, 
'99, Henry L. McGillis, '02, Edson R. Miles, 'oo, Wight 
V. Abbott, 'oo, and Frank Ainsworth, ex-'oo. The Man- 
dolin Club comprised Royden Williamson, '99, R. S. 
Waterman, '01, B. D. Butler, '02, H. L. McGillis, '02* 
E. W. Scripter, '01, and Frank Ainsworth, ex-'oo. Edson 
Miles was the leader of the Glee Club, Earl W. Scripter 
of the Banjo Club, and Royden Williamson of the Man- 
dolin Club. Wilson T. Moog, ex-'o2, now a Doctor of 
Music and a professor in Smith College, was the accom- 
panist, and Harry W. Reed the business manager. The 
first concert was given at Massena on Friday evening,, 
March 3, 1899, and this was followed by performances at 
DeKalb, Norwood, Dexter, Brownville, Watertown, Mace- 
don, Medina, Middleport, Buffalo, Rochester, Rome, and 
Fort Plain. In addition to the regular concerts they 
made it a point to play before the high schools. Judging 
from the reports printed in the papers of the various 
towns visited, in all their performances, both on and ofT 
the stage, they did credit to the Scarlet and Brown. 
Apropos of their stay at Fort Plain, one of the party 
writes: "Here the clubs showed their ability to meet 
any demand that might be made upon them, musical or 
moral. Manager Reed supplied the puplit at both the. 



ORATORY AND MUSIC 20/ 

morning and evening services, the versatile leader of the 
glee club conducted young people's meeting, and the 
quartette sang in the choir. The others put their hard- 
earned Canada pennies in the collection." Thus, after a 
lapse of two years, the old zeal and ability reappeared. 
A spirited account of this trip was published in The 
Laurentian of April, 1899. 

In January of the following year, 1900, the clubs were 
reorganized, with a few new names to fill the vacancies 
due to graduation, Nathaniel B. Hodskin, ex-'o4, John E. 
Mahoney, 'oi, Ivan R. Wellington, 'oi, and Guy L. 
Harrington, 'oi, replacing Beder, Williamson, Barnum, 
and Cross; and in March they made another successful 
tour, in which the former successes were repeated before 
still larger audiences. In The Laurentian of April, 1900, 
may be found an article giving the details of this trip. 

At commencement that year, the clubs furnished the 
concert and covered themselves with glory; the con- 
temporary reports call it "the most successful concert 
ever given in the history of the college. ,, And with this 
final demonstration, the musical clubs of St. Lawrence 
practically passed out of existence. There were still 
evidences of interest; there was even some talk about 
repeating the Senior class concert. But nothing was done;, 
the clubs never again made a public appearance. 

After this there were occasional musicales and minstrel 
shows. Of the latter, that given in March, 1907, called 
forth in The Laurentian of the same month the following 
comment: "It seems to be the consensus of opinion that, 
with such talent in college, it is nothing short of disgrace- 
ful that no glee club is now maintained." But the old 
order had changed. In March, 1902, the Dramatic Club 
had been organized, and from then on the interest of the 
students turned toward the drama rather than music. 
Yet it is worthy of note that the first performance given 



208 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

under the new auspices was the opera "Erminie," under 
the management of Wilson T. Moog, ex-'o2, former accom- 
panist of the clubs. 

COLLEGE ORCHESTRA 

The history of music at St. Lawrence would not be 
complete without taking note of the College Orchestra, 
which, though of brief duration and limited to local 
performances, did some work worthy of record. This 
orchestra, made up of college men and women, chiefly 
owed its success to the capable and enthusiastic leadership 
of Chloe Emma Stearns, ex-'o2 (now Mrs. C. H. Gaines), 
who was fully equipped for her task both by original 
genius and thorough training. For two years, 191 2 and 
191 3, this orchestra furnished the commencement music 
acceptably, but through lack of adequate financial support 
it was finally dissolved. 

This sketch of musical enterprise at St. Lawrence 
should not close without some mention of St. Lawrence 
composers. Florence J. Lee, '82 (now Mrs. E. A. Whit- 
man), wrote part of the music for the Mostellaria, the 
Latin play so successfully given in 1897. She also com- 
posed a fraternity song for her chapter, and the music of 
the hymn sung at President Hervey's inauguration, the 
words being by Mrs. C. K. Gaines, '78. Alice Mills, 'oo, 
and Clara Ayres, '04 (now Mrs. C. R. Skinner), composed 
dance music. Margaret Austin, 'oo, composed the music 
to the song, "The Tears of St. Lawrence," the words of 
which were by Ethel Robinson, '05 (now Mrs. J. P. 
Murphy), and Grace Atwater, '99 (Mrs. Alfred Y. Soule), 
wrote both words and music of the "Hymn to St. 
Lawrence." Some skillful musical adaptations were made 
by Professor Clement M. Baker, '85; and Wilson T. Moog, 
ex-'o2, constructed a medley of college songs which long 
retained its popularity. 



ORATORY AND MUSIC 209 



ST. LAWRENCE 

Ode sung at the inauguration of President Hervey in i88g: words by Mrs. Cammie 
Woods Gaines, '78; music composed by Mrs. Florence Lee Whitman, '82. 

Hail, Alma Mater! glad greeting! 
All hearts with joy are now beating; 
Come we with pride to our dear Mother's side, 
True children in common love meeting. 

Bright be the skies oer her bending, 

Stainless the honors descending 
On her loved head, who in years that are sped 

Hath bless 'd us with honors unending. 

Like a strong wall shall we serve her, 

Circle and guard and preserve her; 
Daughter and son, in her love held as one, 

With equal zeal strive to deserve her. 

By the dear memories that cluster, 

By her dear fame's noble lustre, 
Pledge we to stand heart to heart, hand to hand, 

Where Scarlet and Brown calls to muster. 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE ASCENDING EFFORT 

ELECTION AND ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HERVEY 
IMPROVED CONDITION OF FINANCES WOMAN PRO- 
FESSORSHIP INCREASE IN NUMBER OF STUDENTS 

DISCIPLINARY METHODS — RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT 
HERVEY — ELECTION AND ADMINISTRATION OF PRESI- 
DENT J. C. LEE — CHANGES IN THE FACULTY — THE 
GYMNASIUM ERA OF UNREST AND TRANSITION. 

AT commencement in 1888 Doctor A. G. Gaines, 
compelled by failing health, resigned the presi- 
dency of the college, — continuing, however, in 
the Craig Professorship, the duties of which he performed 
almost to the day of his death in 1903. The choice of 
a worthy successor presented a problem not easy to solve. 
Though the college, through the self-sacrificing efforts 
recorded in Chapter VII, had been saved from the danger 
of immediate extinction, its endowment was still miser- 
ably insufficient for its needs and the whole outlook 
discouraging. A loyal faculty was rendering efficient 
service, and sound standards were maintained; but even 
with the small registration of that period, the under- 
graduate total scarcely equaling an entering class of today, 
its members were worked to the limit of human endurance 
for salaries that would not have held them for a month 
had their motives been in any degree mercenary. More 
money must be raised at once, better equipment provided, 
the constituency notably increased. Doubtless the ulti- 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 211 

mate fate of the college hung in the balance at this 
moment; any serious mistake would have been fatal. 
Happily, after much earnest deliberation, a wise decision 
was reached and the right selection made. On October 
13, 1888, the Executive Committee elected as acting 
president the Reverend Alpheus Baker Hervey, Ph.D. 
— now the oldest living graduate of the Theological 
School. Doctor Hervey began his duties with the open- 
ing of the fall term, 1888, and at the next commencement 
he was elected president by the full board. 

The inauguration ceremonies were held in the Pres- 
byterian church on the morning of Wednesday, June 26, 
1889. There were addresses by General Edwin A. Merritt, 
president of the Board of Trustees, and by the Honorable 
Charles H. Russell for the alumni, besides the inaugural 
address of President Hervey, in which he dwelt upon the 
pecuniary needs of the institution and the great possi- 
bilities of the future through more adequate endowment 
and increased numbers. The hymn St. Lawrence, with 
words by Mrs. Charles K. Gaines and music by Miss 
Florence Lee (now Mrs. Edmund A. Whitman), was sung 
for the first time on this occasion by a quartette consisting 
of Miss Lee, Mrs. A. B. Hepburn, and Messrs. C. M. 
Baker and G. S. Conkey. 

Upon President Hervey was imposed the task of rais- 
ing enough money to establish the college securely, and 
he immediately attacked the undertaking with energy 
and success. At the beginning of his administration the 
college endowment was #101,088; at the time of his resig- 
nation, in 1894, it was $162,328. Of the increase, amount- 
ing to more than $60,000, some $15,000 came through 
bequests; but in addition to the foregoing, the foundation 
of the Chapin Professorship of Geology and Mineralogy 
is to be identified with President Hervey's administration, 
for the gift of $30,000 to establish it was received through 



212 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

him during the interval between his resignation and the 
close of his term of office, though it was not until somewhat 
later that the whole amount was paid and the first incum- 
bent elected. The sum of $5,000 toward the endowment 
of the Woman Professorship, the first gift of any such 
proportions to be made for that object, was obtained about 
the same time from a donor whose name was then with- 
held, but who is now known to have been Mrs. Harriet 
Lewis of Meriden, Connecticut. 

In the year of President Hervey's election the income 
from invested funds was $5,745 and from tuition $750; 
in the last year of his administration the income from 
endowment funds was $8,228 and from tuition, $1,945. 
The increase from tuition was due in part to a notable 
increase in the number of students and in part to the 
raising of the tuition from thirty to forty-five dollars a 
year. In addition to the above sources of income, Pres- 
ident Hervey each year secured considerable sums by 
subscriptions for the specific purpose of meeting current 
expenses. He did not confine his efforts to the securing 
of large benefactions. Literally hundreds of donors made 
the gifts, of widely varying amounts, which aggregated 
the sums named above. Where he could not secure imme- 
diate gifts he sought to have bequests included in wills, 
and the college is doubtless still gathering the fruits of 
some of his efforts in that direction, as the coming genera- 
tion will in turn profit by the far-reaching plans and 
labors of his successors. 

Just previous to the beginning of President Hervey's 
administration, an endowment fund of $50,000 had been 
raised by general subscription, and something over 
$20,000 more had been pledged on condition that a second 
$50,000 be secured, — a condition that on August 31, 
1897, was certified to be fulfilled. Some of the principal 
subscribers to this second $50,000 were: Columbus R. 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 213 

Cummings, $25,000; General Edwin A. Merritt, $2,500; 
John and Harriet Biddle, $1,000; the Honorable Leslie W. 
Russell, $500. 

General Edwin Atkins Merritt, the venerable pres- 
ident of the Board of Trustees and one of the oldest as 
well as staunchest friends of the University, performed 
heroic service throughout this closing period of real pecu- 
niary stress. The General, when a young man, had once 
taken charge of a district school in Morley. A boy had 
broken up the school just before, and the board was 
looking for a teacher of physical ability and courage suf- 
ficient to control that boy and keep order. Young Mr. 
Merritt was over six feet in height and of corresponding 
strength, so he was selected. Soon after school opened 
it became evident that the boy in question wished to try 
the new teacher's mettle. A disturbance arose, and Mr. 
Merritt saw that the crisis had come. He told the boy 
to step out from his seat, and said: "I have come here 
to teach this school. I wish to be your friend and assist 
you in your studies; but you must observe the rules of 
the school. Which do you wish to do, remain and be 
a good boy or leave the school? You must do one or the 
other." The lad hesitated, then said that he wished to 
remain. He did remain, his conduct was satisfactory, 
and he became a firm friend of the teacher. Long years 
afterward, when the boy had grown to manhood and 
achieved large business success, and the teacher in addi- 
tion to many other well-earned distinctions had become 
president of the Board of Trustees of the University, 
the former showed his good will to his friend of long 
standing, and to the region where his early years were 
spent, by a gift of $25,000 to St. Lawrence. The name of 
this generous benefactor is Columbus R. Cummings. 

At the meeting of the Ladies' Centenary Association 
held at Watertown, October 2, 1889, at the same time as 



214 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

the New York Convention of Universalists, Mrs. M. L. 
Thomas of New York suggested the establishment of a 
chair to be held by a woman at St. Lawrence. Addresses 
in support of the proposal were made by President Hervey 
and Doctor Richmond Fisk, and a committee, consisting 
of Mrs. George Graves, Mrs. Amanda Deyo, Mrs. Walker, 
Mrs. L. C. Brown, and Mr. Lyman Bickford, was ap- 
pointed to raise $25,000 for the endowment of such a 
professorship. General John C. Graves, president of the 
convention and a trustee of the University, subscribed 
$500. Miss Sarah E. Sprague, '66, and Miss Florence J. 
Lee, '82 (now Mrs. Edmund A. Whitman), on behalf 
of the college women, were active later in soliciting 
subscriptions. The first large gift, that of Mrs. Harriet 
Lewis, has already been mentioned, and the completion 
of the endowment by the same generous benefactor in 
President Gunnison's administration will appear later 
in the narrative. The occupants of this chair have 
been Mary Estelle Young (now Mrs. F. H. De Groat) 
from 1902 to 1904, Mary L. Freeman from 1904 to 
1913, and the present incumbent, Sarah de Maupassant 
Plaisance. 

A second problem that confronted President Hervey 
arose from the small size of the student body. In 1887-88 
the college numbered only sixty-six undergraduates, with 
nineteen students in the Theological School. Moreover, 
at that date scarcely any of the college students came from 
beyond the limits of New York State, and more than 
four-fifths of them were from Canton and a few of the 
neighboring towns. As a result the college was hardly 
known outside the county, the sphere of its influence was 
sadly restricted, and the advantages to be derived from 
the mingling of students belonging to widely separated 
communities, with their differing standards and modes 
of thought and living, were entirely lacking. The prob- 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 215 

lem was a serious one; but President Hervey kept it ever 
in mind during his financial wanderings, and soon achieved 
remarkable results which have been of lasting value to 
St. Lawrence. His wide acquaintance among Univer- 
salists, his strong personality, his genial manner and ever- 
youthful spirits, made him a welcome visitor in every 
home he entered. He bound young people to him by ties 
of personal affection which later became his greatest source 
of influence and his most potent instrument in dealing 
with disciplinary problems. 

This search for money and students kept President 
Hervey away from the college most of the time during 
the first two years of his incumbency, traveling far and 
wide in the Middle and New England States, and always 
visiting high schools, academies, churches, and homes, 
in search of students. In fact, during the whole of his 
administration, even when teaching, the President usually 
spent his week-ends far from Canton, preaching and 
seeking students, often traveling three or four hundred 
miles between Friday and Monday. 

The fruits of these earnest efforts quickly appeared. 
The entering class in 1890 numbered nineteen; in 1891, 
twenty-nine; and in 1892, thirty-nine — a number that 
had never before been even approximated. Moreover, 
in these classes were students from Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Ohio, Pennsylvania, 
Maryland, and Texas; and the cities of Brooklyn, Buffalo, 
Rochester, and Watertown in New York State were all 
represented. The great extension of the sphere of influence 
of the University through this enlargement of its con- 
stituency is manifest. The General Catalogue gives the 
names of one hundred and fifty students registered in 
the six classes that entered during this administration, — 
an average of twenty-five in a class; and of these ninety- 
six were graduated, — an average of sixteen in a class. 



2l6 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

While St. Lawrence has continued to draw a large pro- 
portion of its students from the region from which it 
derives its name and which it especially serves, it has 
never in any subsequent period returned to the position 
of a merely local college. 

In the spring of 1892 occurred the death of two well- 
beloved members of the college faculty, Professors James 
Henry Chapin and Clement Morelle Baker. The first 
died in the fullness of his honored age, his life's work well 
completed; the death of the younger man, struck down 
in the opening years of a career full of promise, was a 
tragedy. Teachers of greater strength, no doubt, had 
preceded him, and stronger teachers were to follow; but 
no teacher of a character more sweet and lovable ever 
sat behind a professor's desk at St. Lawrence. The chair 
of Professor Chapin was not immediately filled. How 
a loyal and competent successor was found to take 
up without delay the arduous work of the chair of 
Latin is an incident characteristic of the time and worthy 
of record. 

When Professor Baker had become too ill to conduct 
his classes — and he continued to meet them until very 
near the end — President Hervey consulted with members 
of the faculty in regard to a substitute. Professor C. K. 
Gaines thereupon suggested Mr. George R. Hardie of the 
class of '90, who, after teaching Greek and Latin for a 
year in Clinton Liberal Institute — now merged in St. 
Lawrence University, but then an independent school at 
Fort Plain — had nearly completed a year's post-graduate 
study at Harvard. Said President Hervey, "Telegraph 
at once." Professor Gaines telegraphed, and the answer 
was prompt and decisive, "I will come" — though this 
decision involved the forfeiture of the Harvard degree 
which Mr. Hardie was then seeking. So Professor Hardie 
came back to St. Lawrence at call in an hour of need; 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 217 

and here he has ever since remained, at all times a no- 
table factor in its work and development. He speedily 
justified the confidence of those who summoned him, and 
on the death of Professor Baker was appointed to the 
vacant chair. 

Increasing numbers brought increasing disciplinary 
responsibilities. The students, now drawn from a wider 
field, brought in outside traditions, not always of an 
amiable sort, to an extent that caused some trouble. Class 
spirit became a thing to be reckoned with, and some of 
its manifestations in the early nineties demanded the 
serious attention of the administration. Hazing was never 
carried to any serious length, but interclass conflicts 
threatened for a time to pass all reasonable limits. When 
the class of 1896 fairly stormed Richardson Hall in a class 
contest in the spring of 1893, it was plainly time for the 
authorities to take a hand. At this juncture President 
Hervey showed excellent judgment in his methods. He 
resorted to no harsh and arbitrary measures, but made 
his appeal to the good sense, the manhood and woman- 
hood of the students, to their pride in the good name of St. 
Lawrence and their good will toward himself. The appeal 
was successful; never, perhaps, in all the history of the 
college, has such an appeal failed of success when gen- 
uinely and fully made. 

Thereafter the method used was prevention. Presi- 
dent Hervey now knew from experience the trouble-breed- 
ing occasions of each year, and when disorder threatened 
appealed individually to the more influential students 
to aid in maintaining proper discipline. The result was 
the gradual formation of an esprit de corps which effect- 
ually restrained the more hot-headed when they were in 
danger of going too far. This really amounted to a system 
of student self-government, with cordial cooperation 
between students and faculty, inaugurated in the early 



2l8 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

nineties without formality and without clamor. For a 
time it worked admirably, but later it became evident that 
President Hervey's personality was an indispensable 
factor in its success. 

After 1890 the exigencies of the situation made it 
necessary for President Hervey to do much regular class- 
room work as a professor, in addition to all the burdens 
of the general administration and his ceaseless activities 
in the larger field. This combination of diverse duties 
and heavy responsibilities was more than any man could 
long endure; every previous head of the college had finally 
broken down under the stress of it, — though none had 
ever attempted quite so much as President Hervey was 
sustaining — and upon no subsequent president was this 
complex of exhausting cares and time-consuming labors 
imposed in an equal degree. It was not merely his own 
specialty (botany and microscopy) that he was required 
to teach, but whatever else happened to be most needed, 
from geology to civil government; he has aptly described 
his professorship as "not a chair but a settee." It was 
too much: no man could really do all that seemed to be 
required of a president of St. Lawrence, and the mere 
attempt placed one in a false position, for he must "pro- 
fess" things that were no profession of his. Altogether, 
he undoubtedly felt that his larger efforts were in a meas- 
ure frustrated by adverse conditions; and in June, 1894, 
at the annual meeting of the Board of Trustees, Presi- 
dent Hervey presented his resignation, to take effect 
October 1, on the completion of the sixth year of his 
administration. During this interval, still working for 
the college with undiminished zeal, the retiring president 
secured two of the largest benefactions received during 
this period, as noted above. 

President Hervey, like his revered predecessor, Presi- 
dent Gaines, left upon the college a deep imprint of 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 219 

self-sacrificing devotion and noble Christian character. 
Especially remarkable was his success in bringing to St. 
Lawrence young men and women of the best type and 
the highest promise. Many of the most loyal and distin- 
guished of the alumni date from this administration, and 
four of them are at present serving as trustees. He left 
the college, still poor indeed, but no longer in extremities, 
and in every way strengthened. 

After the resignation of President Hervey, the Board 
of Trustees appointed an Advisory Committee, consist- 
ing of Messrs. Russell, Sykes, Backus, Graves, and Almon 
Gunnison, to act with the Executive Committee in the 
choice of a president. Pending such choice the internal 
administration of the college ran smoothly under the 
direction of an administrative committee of the faculty 
composed of Professors Henry Priest, C. K. Gaines, and 
G. R. Hardie. In the fall of 1895 Professor Gaines was 
granted a leave of absence in order to engage in literary 
and editorial work in New York. At the annual meeting 
of the trustees in June, 1895, it was voted to appoint 
Professor Priest acting president pending the election of 
a president; but he declined the appointment. The 
selection of a president was then referred to the Executive 
Committee with power, and on May 25, 1896, on the 
recommendation of the Advisory Committee, Professor 
John Clarence Lee, '76, of Galesburg, Illinois, was in- 
vited to a conference with a view to his designation 
as president. As a result of this conference, Professor 
Lee was immediately elected to the presidency of the 
college by the Executive Committee, and this action 
was ratified by the full board at the ensuing annual 
meeting in June. 

The inauguration ceremony was held in the Town 
Hall, June 23, 1896. Prayer was offered by Doctor J. S. 
Lee, father of the president-elect. After the formal pres- 



220 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

entation of the keys by General Edwin A. Merritt, presi- 
dent of the board, and their acceptance by President 
Lee, three addresses of welcome were delivered, Doctor 
A. G. Gaines speaking for the faculty, Herbert F. Gunni- 
son, '8o, for the alumni, and Doctor I. M. Atwood for the 
Theological School. In his inaugural, which followed, 
President Lee dealt chiefly with educational matters, 
urging the paramount importance of freedom on the part 
of the teacher in giving instruction and on the part of 
the student in following the lines of his greatest aptitude. 
After the inauguration ceremonies, a reception was held 
at the residence of Professor and Mrs. C. K. Gaines. 

Just previous to this commencement, Professor Charles 
Kelsey Gaines had resigned the chair in which he had 
served the college for twenty years, in order to accept 
the vice-presidency of the Bacheller Newspaper Syndi- 
cate in New York, of which Irving Bacheller, '82, was 
president. To fill the vacancy thus created, some re- 
adjustments were made. Frederic C. Foster, who had 
formerly been principal of the Canton Union School, was 
elected Professor of Greek and History, and with President 
Lee, who assumed the chair of English, took up the work 
which had been carried on during the previous year by 
Messrs. E. M. Pickop and E. E. Proper; hence these 
instructors were not re-engaged. 

In 1893-94 the instruction in history and Freshman 
English had been in charge of Everett A. Pugsley (Bow- 
doin, '93), and in 1894-95 in charge of George D. Ham- 
mond (Harvard, '93). In the four years beginning with 
1892, mathematics had been taught by Ceylon S. King- 
ston, '92, Lon C. Walker (Ohio State, '93), Warren G. Bullard 
(Brown, '93), and Edward P. Manning (Brown, '89, Ph.D., 
Johns Hopkins, '94). These frequent changes, though 
accompanied by the introduction of new ideas, and in 
some cases by an advantageous broadening in the scope 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 221 

of the work of the department, were naturally attended 
by some degree of disorganization of the college work, 
and more stable arrangements were felt to be necessary. 
In the fall of 1895, Robert D. Ford, '85, who had 
served as instructor in mathematics during the years 
1887-90, was recalled to this position. In 1896 he was 
appointed to the professorship of mathematics, and has 
discharged the duties of this chair ever since with notable 
efficiency. 

President Lee, while carrying class-room work, spent 
more of less time away from the college in the effort to 
raise money and secure students. His tastes and train- 
ing, however, were literary and academic rather than 
financial and administrative, and during his administra- 
tion the efforts in the outside field, which the existing 
conditions still urgently required, were not productive 
of such increase in the financial resources of the college 
as had been hoped for. President Lee had notably 
progressive ideas on pedagogic subjects, and it was in 
pursuance of his educational policy that the elective system 
was fully introduced at St. Lawrence, though some steps 
in that direction had been taken previously. It was at 
this time also that Greek ceased to be a requisite for the 
degree of Bachelor of Arts, the catalogue of 1896-97 being 
the first in which the change appears. In regard to the 
advisability of this relaxation opinions will doubtless 
differ. Little if any actual injury to the Greek department 
resulted, however, so long as Greek was adequately taught 
in the secondary schools. 

President Lee had a sound sense of the proprieties in 
academic matters, and always discharged the functions 
of his office, such as presiding over the ceremonies of 
commencement, with scrupulous regard for dignity and 
correctness of procedure. It was in 1897, at the com- 
mencement following President Lee's inauguration, that 



222 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

academic robes were first worn by the faculty and the 
ceremony of conferring degrees now in use was established. 
From that time until 1903, Professor Hardie was the com- 
mencement marshal; then Professor Ford had charge of 
arrangements until 191 2; after which Professor Foster 
acted as marshal until his resignation in 191 5. 

To students and officers of the University President 
and Mrs. Lee constantly extended the gracious hospital- 
ities of their home, and by countless personal kindnesses 
Mrs. Lee placed the young women of the college under 
obligation to her. In addition to the social courtesies 
that she showed to the students, Mrs. Lee gave without 
charge to the young women who desired it individual 
instruction in elocution and physical training. 

For many years the catalogue had contained a brief 
statement about a certain "large hall in the basement" 
used as a gymnasium and "furnished with some of the 
most necessary apparatus" — a description unimpeach- 
ably correct, yet perhaps somewhat misleading, for a time 
is remembered when this "most necessary apparatus" 
consisted of a pair of indian clubs, three tattered boxing 
gloves, and one rusty dumb-bell. A new and adequately 
equipped gymnasium was probably the thing most earn- 
estly desired by the students as a whole in the early 
nineties. The project of erecting a building was first 
actually set on foot by James F. McKinney, '93, and Owen 
Young, '94, in the spring of 1893. Some subscriptions 
were secured, and at commencement a committee, with 
Professor Henry Priest as chairman, was appointed to 
carry through the enterprise. The project was placed 
before the corporation, but inasmuch as the funds with 
which it was proposed to erect the building existed only 
on paper, the trustees declined to act, and for a time the 
movement lapsed. In the winter of 1895-96 Mr. E. E. 
Proper, then instructor in history, secured for the stu- 



THE ASCENDING EFFORT 223 

dents the use of the old roller rink on West Street, where 
he gave daily gymnastic training and coached the students 
in basketball, — then for the first time played at St. Law- 
rence. Meanwhile the project of building a gymnasium 
was revived, and the Alumni Association appointed a 
committee, with Professor Hardie as chairman, to take 
the matter in hand. During the following year Pro- 
fessor Hardie solicited subscriptions, visiting New York 
and other places for that purpose; and at commencement 
in 1896 he turned over to the Board of Trustees an archi- 
tect's design with specifications which made the plan 
appear feasible, and cash in hand to such an amount 
that the board proceeded to carry out the proposal. The 
gymnasium was built during the following summer, and 
on January 22, 1897, was opened with an entertainment 
given under the direction of Mrs. Lee. The first reguiar 
instructor in physical culture and director of the gym- 
nasium was George Lincoln Kimball, a graduate of Bow- 
doin College, who served until 1903. 

It was in June of this year, 1897, that a remarkable 
presentation of the Mostellaria of Plautus was given, in 
the original Latin, by the students of the classical depart- 
ment under the direction of Professor Hardie, to whom 
great credit is due. But this notable achievement is fully 
described in another connection. 

Notwithstanding these and other signal tokens of 
vitality and progress, the time was transitional and full 
of difficulty; conditions were changing, many factors of 
the old college life were passing away, and the new, that 
were ultimately to replace them, had not yet fully arrived. 
As is natural in such a period, great restlessness pervaded 
the whole student body, and in particular the old methods 
of discipline, so efficient under President Gaines and so 
successfully developed by President Hervey, now began 
to fail of their purpose. There' were some scenes of dis- 



224 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

order on the campus which stand without a parallel 
in the history of St. Lawrence; the college spirit was at 
a low ebb, and much of it running in false channels. 
With the close of the century another crisis had been 
reached: how it was met will be told in a subsequent 
chapter. 



CHAPTER XIV 
ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 

NEW EDUCATIONAL IDEALS — PROFESSOR HARDIE — EN- 
TRANCE REQUIREMENT RAISED EMPHASIS ON SCHOLAR- 
SHIP GROWTH OF CURRICULUM CLASSICAL LIBRARY 

LABORATORIES ELECTIVE COURSES SYSTEM OF 

AWARDING HONORS PHI BETA KAPPA INTERNAL AD- 
MINISTRATION — OFFICE OF RECORDER. 

IN this age of munificent gifts to colleges, progress is 
often judged by the concrete material forms (such 
as athletic fields, equipment, and buildings) which 
abundant means create. Back of all this, but quite as 
important as any increase in possessions, is the unob- 
trusive progression in administrative policy, courses of 
study, and methods of teaching, without which stagnation 
and disaster must result, no matter how well endowed or 
fully equipped an institution may be. President Gaines 
had laid the foundations broad and deep, and had baptized 
the college with his own beautiful spirit. He had gathered 
about him a corps of teachers as loyal and faithful as 
himself, and had set high standards of both moral and 
intellectual instruction. Thus equipped, with an endow- 
ment which is of inestimable value compared with mere 
material appliances, the college was ready for expansion, 
— ready for a superstructure as noble and beautiful as 
the foundation was strong and enduring. 

While the measures referred to in the preceding chapter 
were being carried out, a new leaven of influence was 
bringing about equally important changes in internal 



226 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

conditions. The generation then living had witnessed a 
tremendous widening of the field of knowledge. Subjects 
once unknown to the curriculum now claimed a place in 
college instruction and the subject matter of familiar 
studies, enriched and broadened, called for increased time 
and attention. As a result, the academic atmosphere was 
charged with a busy activity quite unlike the secluded 
quiet of traditional college life. Moreover, the educa- 
tional motives of the time were different from those which 
had formerly prevailed. Aims do not, of course, wholly 
change in passing from one epoch of college history to 
another. The remoter ends are always much the same, 
but they may be approached from a different angle; in 
the material with which higher education deals, the center 
of gravity shifts from time to time. In what may be 
called the Period of Reorganization, St. Lawrence was 
orienting itself anew. 

Stated broadly, the aim of the older type of college 
was the development of character. The prevailing tone 
of its most distinctive elements of instruction was ethical 
and spiritual; it was the training of the mental and moral 
faculties which it had primarily in view. It would not 
be just to say that the earlier era was without regard for 
the objects emphasized in the ensuing period, or that the 
new era lost sight of the high ideals of the old. At the 
same time, seen after the lapse of years, the difference in 
attitude is manifest. In the new epoch the scientific 
spirit began to prevail in all lines of study, and enthu- 
siasm for knowledge became a foremost characteristic. 
"Scholarship" was now the watchword of the universities, 
and it presently became that of the students as well. 
Many, especially, who had gone to Europe to study came 
back imbued with the German zeal for exact knowledge. 
St. Lawrence, even in her isolation and remoteness, felt 
the new conditions and was affected by them. 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 227 

Professor Hardie had brought with him from Harvard 
new ideas and new methods which were, in the course of 
a few years, to bring about marked changes. An extract 
from a private letter of a Freshman, dated February 12, 
1893, says: "Professor Hardie has a head full of new ideas 
of college government, and he is having a great deal to 
say in the running of the college. One of his reforms is 
to raise the entrance requirements about two years higher 
than they are, or one year at least. He has not yet ac- 
complished this, but he will in time, and it will be the 
best thing possible for the college, for it will keep out 
students who do not know the first essentials." This 
reform was soon brought about, at least in a large measure, 
one of its most notable provisions being the extension of 
the English preparation requirements to conform to those 
of the best colleges. 

In the winter of 1892-93, Professor C. K. Gaines re- 
turned from an extended trip abroad, and brought with 
him renewed energy and enthusiasm. His broad-minded 
wisdom and painstaking methods thus became again 
available in the new era that was opening. Other men 
trained under the influence of the new tendencies came 
subsequently. Up to 1894 the instruction in history in 
the college was limited to a course for Freshmen, neces- 
sarily very general and elementary, and a course in English 
history, originally designed as a preliminary to the study 
of English literature. In 1894 it was decided to reorganize 
the department of history so as to give a more adequate 
range of instruction in historical subjects. Professor 
Hardie secured as instructor Mr. George Daniel Hammond, 
who had been his fellow-student at Harvard and had 
subsequently studied in Germany. Modest and scholarly, 
Mr. Hammond rendered valuable service to the college 
in organizing the work of his department. After one 
year, 1894-95, he resigned to go to a larger institution. 



228 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Mr. (now Doctor) E. E. Proper, instructor in history in 
the year 1895-96, was also a Harvard man, having spent 
three years in that university after receiving his bachelor's 
degree. Professor Frederic Coffyn Foster, occupant of 
the chair of history from 1896 to 1915, received his special 
training at Johns Hopkins University. 

The head of the department of mathematics has in 
two instances been a Johns Hopkins man. Edward Pay- 
son Manning, Ph.D., instructor in 1894-95, took his 
doctorate there. Doctor Manning's fine spirit was con- 
tained in a frail body. He gave the college a year of 
worthy service; but soon after his departure in failing 
health, death cut short a promising career. Professor 
Robert Dale Ford, who was instructor in mathematics 
from 1887 to 1890 and returned to St. Lawrence in 1895, 
had in the interval spent some time in study at Johns 
Hopkins. 

Not only was the curriculum extended during this 
epoch, but the manner of giving instruction was altered. 
The old-fashioned method of grinding on a compact text- 
book, which was assumed to contain all the essentials of 
a given subject, while it undoubtedly had its advantages, 
had become inadequate. According to the new doctrine 
a professor rendered the best possible service to a student 
by guiding and stimulating him, by giving direction and 
inspiration to his work. Hence the professor came more 
and more to occupy the time spent in the class-room in 
giving lectures instead of conducting recitations, and 
collateral reading over a considerable field in a measure 
took the place of the study of text-books. Department 
libraries and laboratories came to have new significance 
and importance. 

The Classical Library was established by Professor 
Hardie in 1892, in a room fitted up for the purpose in 
what is now Richardson Hall. It had as a nucleus a 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 229 

number of books presented to the Latin Department from 
the collection of Professor Baker, and a few additional 
volumes from other donors. The Alumni Association 
subsequently appropriated one hundred dollars for the 
purchase of reference books in various departments, and 
with a portion of this sum additions were made to the 
classical collection. In 1896 upwards of one hundred 
volumes were received through Nelson L. Robinson, '77, 
from the library of that eminent scholar and friend of 
classical learning, Professor Henry Warren Torrey of 
Harvard. The next gift of importance was one thou- 
sand dollars which Professor Hardie received from the late 
Governor Roswell P. Flower, of Watertown. His brother, 
the late Anson R. Flower, subsequently added three hun- 
dred dollars to complete the improvements to which the 
gift of his brother had been applied. 

The library now provides a splendid equipment for 
work in the classics. It contains a full assortment of 
editions of the classical Greek and Latin authors, and 
works of reference treating of ancient history, literature, 
art, epigraphy, paleography, and similar subjects. In 
short, the library affords opportunity for investigation in 
any line of study in which a student is likely to be en- 
gaged in connection with the Greek and Latin studies of 
his college course. Its constant and increasing use shows 
plainly the benefit arising from the departmental libraries, 
intelligently selected and conveniently placed. In the 
eighties, and indeed up to the end of the century, Herring 
Library was so dark and poorly ventilated, and open so 
small a part of the time, that its steps and basement were 
more often used for the initiatory rites of college frater- 
nities than were its tables and alcoves for reference and 
research. 

Up to the time in question the equipment of the 
college had been crude, meager, and in some departments 



23O SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

entirely wanting. Even those sciences which are most 
dependent upon laboratory work and individual experi- 
ment were taught mostly by the text-book method. Presi- 
dent Gaines in the early days of his administration had 
purchased surveying instruments with his own funds, in 
order that the classes in trigonometry might not have 
theoretical training only. Professor Henry Priest devoted 
much of his scanty leisure to constructing apparatus for 
the science courses, often furnishing materials as well. 
Professor C. K. Gaines, when in 1882 he completely re- 
constructed the methods in English literature, created the 
necessary class-room library largely by taking books from 
his own shelves. In short, each man on the faculty gave 
his talent, his time, and his resources unsparingly that the 
students under his charge might be better instructed, and 
it was this spirit of personal sacrifice and unselfish en- 
deavor which so notably developed and fostered high ideals 
in the days when the St. Lawrence spirit was taking form. 
In chemistry President Gaines had procured a few 
test-tubes, retorts, and crucibles, and such material as he 
could afford to purchase with his own money. For the 
most part, while the professor performed experiments the 
students merely looked on, absorbing thus what they 
could. In the catalogue for 1886-87 this statement 
appeared: "Opportunity for and instruction in laboratory 
work is offered to such as elect it." But this, rightly 
interpreted, evidently implied that such work would not 
be urged, much less required. The professors felt the 
need and had the desire to serve their classes thus, but 
the limitations in apparatus and available time were such 
that they could not undertake anything of this kind except 
at great disadvantage. If a student actually sought 
opportunities for laboratory work, they would do their 
best to accommodate him; but the enthusiasts in this line 
were few. They were not non-existent, however, and an 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 23 1 

instance well worthy of mention here is Silas A. Lottridge, 
'92, who under the inspiration of President Hervey's 
instructions became a zealous zoologist, and has since 
written books of much value and interest in this line. 
A little later it became possible to substantiate the above- 
quoted announcement. In 1889 Professor Priest informed 
the Executive Committee that if they would appropriate 
three hundred dollars he could have a chemical laboratory 
constructed. This was before there was any public water 
system in Canton, and when the money was voted one 
of the board privately assured the professor that he could 
not possibly get the water in and out of the building for 
the sum named. Nevertheless, Professor Priest fulfilled 
his part of the contract and had a few dollars to spare; 
but he did it by building the necessary tank in a garret 
close under the roof, and doing a great part of the work 
himself. Thereafter it was possible to announce in the 
catalogue: "The work in chemistry consists largely of 
practical laboratory work by the students under the 
personal supervision of the instructor. A well-furnished 
laboratory has been provided." This first laboratory was 
located on the second floor of what is now Richardson 
Hall, opposite the present location of the classical library, 
— a humble beginning, but it evidenced real progress. 
And if the ill-hooded vapors of the chemical department 
often permeated the chambers consecrated to the classics, 
good-fellowship and loyalty forbade complaint. 

Prior to this, Doctor Frederic S. Lee, '78, when in- 
structor in 1887, had improvised a biological laboratory 
where the faculty room is now located, and this, though 
unavoidably crude, did good service. President Hervey, 
in the early nineties, had procured a number of good 
microscopes and conducted an excellent practical course 
in microscopy; he also made effective use of the reflecting 
telescope he had procured. In 1900 another addition 



232 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

was made to the equipment of the college by the estab- 
lishment of a physical laboratory. Professor Priest had 
been accumulating more and more apparatus in this line, 
constructing not a little of it himself, and his students had 
access to it; but systematic experimentation in physics 
began at this time. 

Tangible evidences of the gradual enrichment of the 
curriculum appears in the tabular list of prescribed and 
elective subjects, first printed in the 1898 catalogue. 
This fixed time-schedule had become a necessity, for since 
the number of electives had gradually increased while 
the faculty had remained of practically the same numerical 
strength, program-making had become a serious matter. 
The list mentioned contains approximately double the 
number of courses offered during the first twenty-five 
years of the history of the college. 

A notable feature of the academic administration at 
this time was the introduction of the elective system 
advocated by Professor Hardie on his return from Har- 
vard to accept a position on the faculty. This change was 
preeminently an outgrowth of the great contest which 
President Eliot of Harvard began in asserting the right 
of the student, under proper limitations, to choose his 
studies. Difference of opinion manifested itself at St. 
Lawrence also, and the final adoption of this progressive 
policy was one of the epoch-making events of the period 
under discussion. It was urged that students were too 
immature to choose their studies wisely; that there would 
be no system, but only a haphazard choice, the subjects 
chosen being those that seemed easiest, or those taught 
by the most entertaining and lenient instructors, and that 
the result would be laziness and mental dissipation. Time 
and the development of a real system have in the main 
negatived these objections, though they have not been 
found wholly groundless. 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 233 

At St. Lawrence the change was accomplished gradu- 
ally. In 1888 mathematics and zoology were alterna- 
tives in the second term of the Sophomore year; German 
was an alternative with Latin and Greek in the Junior 
year, and extra work in English Literature, Greek, or 
Latin, was an alternative with international law in the 
Senior year. At the end of the decade, while the work 
of the Freshman year was still strictly prescribed, election 
to the amount of seven hours was allowed in the Sopho- 
more year, twelve in the Junior year, and nine in the 
Senior year. President John Clarence Lee was a champion 
of the widest freedom of election, and it was chiefly 
through his influence that in 1896 Greek was made elec- 
tive in the Arts course. At the same time the entrance 
requirement for the course leading to the degree of Bach- 
elor of Arts was modified by allowing either French or 
German as a substitute for preparatory Greek, — thus 
eliminating Greek altogether as a positive prerequisite for 
the Arts degree. This change from the traditional policy 
of the college was first announced in the catalogue of 
1896-97, and must not be attributed to Professor Hardie, 
who opposed it, nor to Professor C. K. Gaines, whose 
resignation had already taken effect. Yet even under this 
handicap, Greek at St. Lawrence held its own very suc- 
cessfully until about 191 2, when the results of the grow- 
ing neglect of this subject in the secondary schools began 
to be seriously felt. 

The general acceptance of the elective system has been 
due to several causes. One has been the introduction of 
many new subjects. It is impossible for a student to 
pursue them all — at least, to pursue them far; there- 
fore some sort of election, by the student or for him, has 
to be made. When the elective system was looked upon 
as an innovation it was urged by its advocates that the 
purpose of liberal education is most truly served by 



234 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

encouraging students to attain real proficiency in some 
subjects rather than by making it necessary for them to 
scatter their energies without attaining high or accurate 
scholarship in any. A second factor has been the in- 
creasing demand for the privilege of choosing subjects that 
would be specially serviceable to the student in the calling 
to which he purposes to devote himself. The greater 
proportion of the college men of former generations 
entered the four recognized professions, — the ministry, 
teaching, law, and medicine. For these vocations a 
general education had practical value; it was part of the 
preparation. Now a large fraction of every graduating 
class engage in business. A protest, therefore, has been 
made against forcing a college youth to devote a large 
share of his time to courses in which he feels little interest 
to the neglect of others that will aid him in his future 
work. 

Another factor in modifying the earlier attitude is the 
changed conception of psychology to be referred to here- 
after. The modern view lays emphasis upon the fact 
that the mind is a unit, not a bundle of separate facul- 
ties; also that in the intellectual process each stage grows 
out of that which precedes. The significance attached 
to "association of ideas" is a fundamental element in 
current theories of education. The mind is held to grow 
by a process of assimilation. The modern educator is 
more than sceptical about the kind of value once attributed 
to the old-fashioned "formal disciplines" and such types 
of "mental gymnastics," by which it was sought to train 
the "reason" or the "memory" or the "imagination." 
The study of paradigms and formulae and syllogisms may, 
as is now believed, be helpful in the acquisition of atten- 
tive habits of thought; but the theory of their utility for 
increasing the student's mental capacity in unrelated 
fields is now believed to be without foundation in fact. 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 235 

It is, of course, obvious that most studies of the old 
curriculum did, in their way, serve the highest ends of 
education, defined by Professor James as "the organiza- 
tion of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies to 
behavior." These studies in their place are still valuable, 
though the spirit and methods of instruction are different 
from those which formerly prevailed. 

Returning to a consideration of the policy pursued at 
St. Lawrence, we find all Freshman studies prescribed, 
while for the Sophomores only the course in parliamen- 
tary practice and debate is prescribed. The range of 
choice is, however, limited. This arrangement has been 
dictated by principle, though it is also a matter of ex- 
pediency; for St. Lawrence, with the present number of 
instructors, could not offer unrestricted election in all 
studies, even if she so desired. But the prevailing senti- 
ment at St. Lawrence is in harmony with the opinion of 
Professor George T. Ladd of Yale, — that, while there 
should be some opportunity for election, it is the duty of 
the faculty to maintain a course which shall be "dis- 
ciplinary, comprehensive, and progressive. " To this end 
certain studies must be required. Professor Ladd thinks 
these should embrace linguistic studies, including "at 
least one ancient language, as the key to the interpre- 
tation and the medium for the expression of human 
thought and feeling; so much of mathematics as is neces- 
sary to comprehend the simpler methods of the exact 
sciences, and some knowledge of the methods actually 
employed in at least one of these sciences; and the scien- 
tific knowledge of man's own mental and moral activities, 
and some apprehension of the character of the problems 
that have always engaged the noblest exercises of the 
reason of man." Students who pursue a certain set 
of congruous and personally attractive studies may be 
fitting themselves to be specialists, but they can hardly 



236 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

secure thus a harmonious development of all their powers. 
St. Lawrence at present follows Professor Ladd's theory 
more or less closely. Even should increased endowment 
make possible a further extension of the elective system, 
it is unlikely that any of the studies now required would 
in the near future be dropped from the prescribed list. 

It is sometimes urged, it may be added, that one 
great evil of the elective system is that students select 
"soft" courses — which of late are frequently called 
"lecture courses,'' a curiously perverted phrase meaning 
lectures and nothing else. This is possible and some- 
times happens. But practical experience at St. Lawrence 
shows that the danger is greatly exaggerated. The shirk 
and the bluffer will always be found among college men, 
and in some courses he has better opportunities to dodge 
work than in others. But the welfare of the general body 
of students cannot be sacrificed to these irresponsibles. 
The majority are found anxious to take the subjects 
which they esteem most valuable. Nor do they elect 
them solely, or chiefly, with reference to a future pro- 
fessional or business career. Undergraduates elect the 
courses in English literature and fine arts, not because 
they think to coin the knowledge thereby gained, but 
because they desire introduction to the world's great 
productions in art and literature, and the attainment of 
a trained capacity to appreciate these. 

One thing is apparent to any Laurentian who has 
pondered this matter. So long as St. Lawrence remains 
a small institution with comparatively limited endow- 
ment, she cannot attempt to offer special training. That 
must be left to the great universities and technical 
schools, where it properly belongs. St. Lawrence must 
confine herself to providing her students with a general 
education of the broadest scope possible. Courses, indeed, 
may be offered that have direct practical value and that 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 237 

lay a good foundation for those intending to follow some 
profession. Physiology, chemistry, and psychology, which 
certainly have their place in a scheme of general culture, 
are invaluable to the student of medicine, — as are mathe- 
matics and physics to the prospective civil or electrical 
engineer. But generally speaking, the largest results will 
be obtained by building on the solid foundation laid by 
the wise and honored master-builders of a generation 
now departed. 

An additional incentive to intensive work along the 
lines of a student's chosen activity was held out in 1896, 
by the establishment of the system of awarding honors. 
Candidacy is determined on the basis of grades, and the 
unit of reckoning is the term-hour, — that is, work in- 
volving one hour a week of class-room attendance for a 
term. Under the regulations now in force, students who 
attain grade one hundred in work amounting to six term- 
hours, and grade ninety-five in nine additional term-hours 
in work in any department, are eligible for highest honors 
in that department. Students who receive grade ninety- 
five in twelve term-hours of work in any department are 
eligible for honors in that department. Recipients of 
honors or highest honors receive degrees with distinction 
under the following conditions. Those who attain an 
average grade of at least eighty-seven and obtain highest 
honors in one department or honors in two departments, 
graduate with the distinction cum laude. Those who 
attain an average grade of at least ninety, and receive 
highest honors in two departments, or highest honors in 
one department and honors in two departments, are given 
the distinction magna cum laude. Students who attain 
this distinction and show in their work an unusual degree 
of aptitude, thoroughness, and originality, may be gradu- 
ated summa cum laude at the discretion of the faculty. 

In 1895 a movement looking toward the establish- 



238 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ment of Phi Beta Kappa was instituted by Nelson L. 
Robinson, f yy, and Professor Hardie. The application 
then made, however, failed of being filed the requisite 
length of time in advance of consideration, and it waited 
for action until the next Triennial Convention. At a 
meeting of the Phi Beta Kappa Senate, March 2, 1898, 
the application then renewed was endorsed. The Har- 
vard chapter stood sponsor for St. Lawrence, and at the 
Triennial Council held at Saratoga, September 7, 1898, 
the application was granted, and the chapter was insti- 
tuted at commencement 1899. A more detailed account 
of its organization and work will be found in Chapter X. 
The introduction of the elective system, the system of 
honors, and Phi Beta Kappa, together with the revision 
of the entrance requirements and the expansion of the 
curriculum, necessitated a careful reorganization of the in- 
ternal administration. With the establishment of the 
principle of equivalence between courses, it became neces- 
sary to coordinate the work in the various departments 
as regards amount and difficulty. Again, with the ex- 
tension of electives, the registration of students at the 
opening of each term began to present problems previously 
unknown. The conditions and complications incident to 
the operation of the new regime made necessary a new 
kind of centralized oversight of the student's work, and 
called for judicious individual advice to the undergraduates 
regarding the arrangement of their work. To meet these 
needs, the faculty in 1892 created the office of Recorder, 
and elected Professor Hardie to fill it. Professor Hardie 
in this capacity worked out a system of matriculation and 
registration which, with slight modifications, is still in 
use. This important office was held by Professor Hardie 
until 1903, when Professor Ford was elected Recorder. 
In 191 2 the duties of the office were divided, and Professor 
Hulett was elected Registrar and Professor Foster became 



ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION 239 

Recorder. On the resignation of Professor Foster in 191 5, 
the office of Recorder was dropped and Professor Charles 
M. Rebert was elected Registrar, Professor Hulett having 
been appointed Dean. 

Faculty meetings had previously been held either in 
the class-rooms or at the homes of the professors. A 
room for use as a faculty room and office was now set 
apart and furnished, Charles S. Brewer, '91, presenting a 
desk for the use of the Recorder, and subsequently other 
conveniences. The establishment of the new conditions 
was a slow and laborious process. A sentiment in harmony 
with the new methods had to be created. Regulations to 
cover new problems had to be devised. The elaboration 
of the new curriculum and the adjudication of the cases 
of individual students under the new requirements called 
for frequent and protracted meetings. The result of these 
deliberations was the gradual development of a code of 
procedure which forms the basis of the regulations now in 
force. 



24O SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ST. LAWRENCE, OF COURSE 

By Frank John Arnold, '96. 

If asked for a college whose men are first rate, 
We'd answer, "St. Lawrence, of course." 

If asked where the co-eds are right up to date, 
We'd say, "At St. Lawrence, of course." 

For there they are womanly, witty, and fair; 

In the work and the frolic they take a full share. 

What other small college with this can compare? 
"None other," we'd answer, "of course." 

We don't grease our wheels with Rockefeller s oil — 

St. Lawrence is little, of course. 
Of Stanford's spare millions we've never made spoil — 

But we shall grow bigger, of course. 
We got no remembrance in F ay erwe other's will, 
Crouse gave us no building to stand on the hill, 
But despite lack of money we do business still — 

St. Lawrence will prosper, of course. 

Then if asked for a college that's small but the best, 
Just answer, "St. Lawrence, of course." 

In character, culture — apply any test — 
St. Lawrence stands foremost, of course. 

Her endowment is scanty, her buildings are few, 

But her teaching is sound and her children are true; 

What she once did for us she will yet do for you — 
So come to St. Lawrence, of course. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 

FURTHER DISCUSSION OF THE FORMATIVE PERIOD AND THE 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE CURRICULUM ANCIENT LAN- 
GUAGES MODERN LANGUAGES PSYCHOLOGY, ETHICS, 

SCIENCE OF RELIGION HISTORY AND ECONOMICS — 

ENGLISH COMPOSITION AND LITERATURE — PARLIAMEN- 
TARY LAW — FINE ARTS MATHEMATICS — INSTRUCTION 

IN SCIENCE — GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY CHEMISTRY 

AND PHYSICS BIOLOGY. 

THE story of the development of the curriculum at 
St. Lawrence emphasizes the fact that with years 
the institution has not only increased in size, but 
has grown organically. The graduate's first impression 
of his Alma Mater after an absence of twenty or thirty 
years is that it is a much bigger affair. New and sub- 
stantial buildings surround the few with which he was once 
familiar; thoroughly equipped laboratories and departmen- 
tal libraries, unknown in his day, are common; and more 
students are enrolled in a single class than were in the 
whole college when he was an undergraduate. These are the 
most evident signs of progress. But as this alumnus gains 
insight into the methods employed and the quality of the 
work done, he will become conscious that the University 
has developed internally quite as much as in externals. 
Its life is more complex and its work more diversified; 
there are more and better organized departments; the 
courses of study are not only far more numerous but better 
defined and more carefully related; while the spirit of the 



242 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

instruction, if not more thorough — for it was always 
thorough within its scope — is certainly more scientific. 
This enlargement of the curriculum, the development of 
the scientific spirit of research and experiment, and the 
raising of the intellectual tone of the institution have not 
been effected by any sudden change. They are the result 
of years of unremitting effort and conscientious devotion 
to high educational ideals. Many earnest teachers have 
watched over and cultivated with solicitous interest the life 
of the young institution, — and the increase has come. 

It must be borne in mind that, with the early teachers, 
the question was not whether there should be this or that 
system, but whether there should be any college worthy 
of the name. Their special task was to establish for the 
institution a reputation for thorough and scholarly train- 
ing. This required able and self-sacrificing service as well 
as time. The professors were few in number, yet they 
were expected to teach all the subjects found in the regular 
college course of that day. It may well be imagined that 
with such a variety of subjects to teach the professor's 
time was completely occupied in simply preparing for his 
classes. Too high praise cannot be given these devoted 
and able men who, laboring under such adverse conditions, 
slighted no part of their task, but raised the instruction 
to the plane of genuine college work. Students who sat 
in the class-rooms of President A. G. Gaines, or of Pro- 
fessor Henry Priest, or of Professor Charles K. Gaines — 
to mention three whom the writer of this chapter sat 
under — came to feel that these men were masters of their 
subjects. They might belong to the old school or the new. 
In either case, they sent out young men and women with 
love for their teachers and the highest respect: for the 
quality of the instruction received. Their labors made 
possible the present development. 

Along with this formative work went the gradual 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 243 

enlargement of the curriculum. This was always contin- 
gent in a measure on the size of the faculty; but although 
the number of professors has not been proportionately 
increased, the courses of study now open to students are 
many times what they were twenty-five years ago. This, 
which would have seemed out of the question then, was 
made possible by better organization of the various depart- 
ments, and in some cases by offering different subjects in 
alternate years. To illustrate, — in 1890, aside from a 
little Greek and Roman history in connection with the 
classics, and a little English history taught in connection 
with literature, the only history course was the "Ancient, 
Medieval, and Modern" now relegated to the high school. 
Today eight different courses are offered, and a student 
may elect this subject throughout his last three years. 

At the outset the principal studies were embraced under 
the three traditional chief departments, — classics, mathe- 
matics, and philosophy. Latin and Greek have always 
been strong departments at St. Lawrence. Better courses in 
these subjects, we believe, cannot be offered by any college, 
great or small, within the scope of what is attempted. 
The Greek department has been fortunate in having as 
its head for a period of forty years, save during the inter- 
val from 1895 to 1900, Professor Charles K. Gaines, — the 
peer, at least in the opinion of some who have sat under 
his instruction, of any man in his field in American colleges 
today. Especially in his keen appreciation of the Greek 
language, literature, and history, and in his capacity to 
teach, Professor Gaines is a master. It is a frequent 
source of marvel that through so many years St. Lawrence 
has been able to retain this man of exact knowledge and 
versatile mind. 

In Latin, graduates of the early period testify to the 
thoroughness of the drill they received from Professor John 
Stocker Miller or Professor Walter B. Gunnison. These 



244 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

men well understood the art of teaching as it was then 
practiced. They were unconsciously preparing for larger 
achievements in wider fields. But at the best, in those 
days, the study of Latin was a severe grind, which the 
student accepted as Margaret Fuller did the universe — 
because he had to. There was little or no joy in it. 

When, however, Professor George R. Hardie took 
charge of this department in 1892, the instruction was put 
upon a different basis. The ancient languages were no 
longer set before the student as mere disciplinary studies, 
which he took as a child does medicine, on the assurance 
that it is good for him, though with a wry face. The 
aim henceforth was to study the classic masterpieces as 
literature — as one does those of any language. It was 
also sought to awaken the interest of the student in the 
historical conditions, and in the spirit and institutions of 
the remarkable people that produced these great works. 
As a similar spirit pervaded the Greek department, stu- 
dents were soon led to value the classics for themselves, 
and as a reflection of the life of the two races that have 
made the greatest contributions to civilization; and as a 
result young men and women came from these courses 
enthusiastic over them, conscious that their historic sense 
and imagination had been developed, feeling the tie that 
unites them to these ancient peoples and profoundly in- 
terested. It is not too much to say that the study of 
Latin took on a new meaning under Professor Hardie. 

The inception and founding of the "Woman Professor- 
ship," now officially known as the Lewis Professorship of 
French and German, and the successive occupants of the 
chair, have been noted in some detail in a previous chap- 
ter. It only remains to add that in 19 10, the work having 
become very arduous through the addition by Professor 
Freeman of courses in Spanish and Italian, Mary Irene 
Stewart, 'io, was appointed instructor, practically taking 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 245 

charge of the courses in German; and in 1914 she 
was designated Assistant Professor of German, Professor 
Plaisance, then head of the department, devoting her whole 
time to French and Spanish. In 191 5 courses in Scientific 
French and Scientific German were added to the curric- 
ulum for the benefit of students specializing in science. 
Eleven courses are now offered in French, two in Spanish, 
and fourteen in German. 

Psychology, ethics, and economics were the subjects 
which Doctor A. G. Gaines during thirty years of faithful 
service made his specialties. This period was marked by 
great transformations in the educational world. Each of 
the above-named sciences, in the hands of young and pro- 
gressive scholars, became radically changed. Those who 
were nurtured in the doctrines of the old dispensation and 
have not followed the progress of thought and discovery 
in these fields cannot readily appreciate the altered situa- 
tion. This is particularly true in the case of psychology. 
To pass from the intellectual philosophy of Noah Porter 
to the psychology of William James is to enter another 
world. The former is metaphysical; the latter is confined 
strictly to the domain of science. Nothing is more fasci- 
nating to the scholar today than genetic psychology, — 
the study of how the race and the individual have grad- 
ually acquired mental powers. The problem of sense-per- 
ception — how we are able to know external objects — was 
solved formerly by saying that we have certain "immediate 
perceptions' ' of matter, space, and the like. How often 
that phrase was on Doctor Gaines's lips! It accorded 
with the apparent fact; for every one, child or adult, 
does instantaneously recognize objects and assume the 
facts of space and time. But closer investigation has dis- 
closed that it was not always thus with an individual. 
Students today learn that each person, beginning as an 
infant with bare sensations, gradually acquires the ability 



246 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

to construct instantaneously images of external things. 
They are further taught that ideas are not static things, 
stored up somewhere in the mind; they are processes, and 
when the particular processes stop, they also cease to exist. 
This is no place for a dissertation on the new psychology. 
But perhaps this much will help the alumnus who has not 
applied himself to psychology since he listened to Doctor 
Gaines's lectures to understand something of the change 
that has taken place. 

In ethics, as well as in psychology, there has been a 
new departure. In the college of today far more attention 
is paid to the ethical aspect of practical problems than was 
formerly the case. But the principal difference between 
what was taught in earlier years and the moral science of 
today is in the answer given to the question — How is 
one to determine what is right in a given case? The tradi- 
tional teaching, made familiar to Doctor Gaines's classes, 
was that one by some moral faculty intuitively discerns the 
right; that it is not the result of reasoning or calculation, 
but is immediately seen. Inevitably and logically this 
school vigorously denounced "Utilitarianism" because it 
advocated cold calculation of the amount of happiness 
to be derived before one decided on any action. If the 
good Doctor was not entirely fair to the Utilitarians, still 
the particular kind of Utilitarians that he held up for 
reprobation well deserved to be eschewed by students. 
According to latter-day scholars, Intuitionalism, as well 
as Utilitarianism, is only partly right. It is pointed out 
that our so-called immediate intuitions are themselves, 
like our immediate perceptions, the effect of habits formed 
and organized into the character. Time was when the 
individual had no such immediate recognition of the right. 
Even then, what we "intuitively" perceive as right is not 
necessarily so in fact. People organized in certain ways 
very conscientiously and instantaneously judge the given 



THE WORK AND THE WO R'K E R S 247 

thing to be right or wrong, while other people may perhaps 
very properly call them bigoted or prejudiced. On the 
other hand, though one gets his character from the motive, 
it is a motive toward a certain foreseen end, judged to 
be good. So one finds that he needs reason and judgment 
in morals as elsewhere. 

Doctor Gaines also gave a course of lectures in connec- 
tion with which the members of his class were expected to 
use "Butler's Analogy" as a text-book — a notable work 
published in 1736 by the Bishop of Durham. A classic in 
its field and once in general use in colleges, this book, it 
is scarcely too much to say, deals with matters now no 
longer, in the form therein stated, the subject of intelligent 
controversy, and supports its position by arguments no 
longer felt to be convincing. It is an attempt to combat 
eighteenth century rationalism with its own weapons. Its 
view is that religion is a closed system of truth, and that, 
"as there is no hint or intimation in history that this 
system was first reasoned out, so there is express historical 
or traditional evidence, as ancient as history, that it was 
taught first by revelation." The aim of the book is to 
establish the credibility of this system by intellectualist 
methods on a priori grounds. 

Professor Hardie's courses in comparative religion, 
which are the counterpart of the course in " Butler's Anal- 
ogy," follow the inductive method characteristic of modern 
investigation and instruction. Religious rites, beliefs, and 
sacred books are studied historically, and by the very 
"historical or traditional evidence" to which the good 
Bishop made his appeal, it is shown not only that these 
religious institutions have been subject to growth, but 
also that the religious consciousness itself is a product 
of development like other faculties. This view of religion 
occupies common ground with the new psychology; it at- 
taches diminished importance to the old-fashioned logic, 



248 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

and seeks the springs of the spiritual life in less degree in 
the realm of the intellect than of the will. 

Likewise there has been a marked change in economics. 
The "classical school/' of which Doctor Gaines was such 
an able representative, is no longer "orthodox." In most 
progressive institutions the " science of wealth" is no longer 
regarded as a final enunciation of principles presumed to 
be unalterable. The study is made with a consciousness 
of its many relations, especially as it affects human wel- 
fare. It is part of the study of man. Sociology now 
claims a share in the attention and interest of the student. 
The laissez-faire economist, when he was setting forth the 
unchangeable laws of human society, did not seem to con- 
ceive — it is plain enough now — that there might be a 
better society than the existing order, in which his laws 
might not apply. He failed to appreciate the industrial 
revolution that was taking place around him, for which 
new economic principles are required. It was another in- 
stance of how devotion to a theory blinds one to the very 
facts which support a contrary doctrine. Today economists, 
as well as legislators and philanthropists, have been con- 
strained for the sake of the public weal to advocate forms 
of governmental interference and regulation, not to men- 
tion ownership, which were once vehemently denounced 
as "paternalism" in government. Nevertheless, it was 
economists of the old school, like Doctor Gaines, who 
placed modern political economy on a durable foundation. 
Many will recall how clear and sound were the Doctor's 
views on the money question, and how thoroughly at home 
he was in every branch of the subject. 

On Doctor Gaines's death in 1903, his work was par- 
celled out, as a temporary makeshift, among the other 
professors. It was fitting that Professor Priest, in whom 
the moral note had always sounded clear and who had 
shown special interest in physiological psychology, should 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 249 

take up ethics and psychology; economics fell to Professor 
Foster, as related to his department; Professor Hardie's 
course in the history of religions was inaugurated some 
years later. Through these teachers the new ideas and 
methods finally reached St. Lawrence, — somewhat be- 
lated, for Doctor Gaines was too strongly convinced of the 
truth of the old to take kindly to the new. 

In 191 2 was established the Gaines Professorship of 
Philosophy, so named in commemoration of the life-work 
of Doctor A. G. Gaines. Just previously Professor Henry 
Priest, in failing health, had been granted a year's leave of 
absence for travel and recuperation; and on his return, 
apparently with renewed vigor, he was appointed to this 
chair. His sudden and much lamented death, early in the 
fall of the same year, left a vacancy which was presently 
filled by the appointment of Doctor John Murray Atwood, 
— a fortunate choice. Doctor Atwood soon proved himself 
an inspiring teacher, loved and honored by all who enjoyed 
the privilege of his instruction. The department, how- 
ever, was inadequately equipped, and the modern method of 
dealing with psychology had not yet completely arrived. In 
1 9 14, to the great regret of his colleagues in the College of 
Letters and Science, Professor Atwood resigned his chair 
in order to assume new and responsible duties as Dean 
of the Theological School. He was succeeded by Pro- 
fessor Charles Muthart Rebert, the present incumbent, — 
another fortunate appointment. Professor Rebert, a spe- 
cialist in child psychology, had received thorough training 
in the most advanced methods of psychological instruc- 
tion and research. More and better apparatus was now 
indispensable; and before the close of the year a moderate 
equipment had been supplied, and real laboratory instruc- 
tion in psychology was soon begun. 

The nature of the training in English during the earlier 
days at St. Lawrence has already been somewhat indicated 



250 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

in other connections. Though primitive, it was fairly 
effective. It consisted chiefly in the study of a text-book 
in rhetoric during the Freshman year, and the writing of 
several formal essays, with professorial criticism, each 
term throughout the entire college course. As a result 
some notably good writers were developed, while others 
remained very poor — probably the most usual result 
under any system. Toward the close of the century this 
mode of procedure gradually lapsed, and for a time there 
was nothing that very definitely took its place, though 
much writing was required in the class-room and some of 
it was carefully criticised. One remarkable course in the 
use of English, however, remained open to Seniors as long 
as Doctor A. G. Gaines was able to offer it. This was 
called "Whately's Rhetoric," and the good old-fashioned 
volume bearing that title, greatly loved by the Doctor, was 
always the nominal text-book; but the pith of the course 
consisted in the lectures and comments of Doctor Gaines 
himself — and many a student of the older time will 
testify to their value. Since its effectiveness was due 
almost solely to the personality of the teacher, after the 
death of Doctor Gaines "Whately" disappeared from the 
curriculum and became a memory. 

It was now felt that more adequate provision must be 
made for training the undergraduates in the use of English, 
especially during the first year. The outcome was the 
organization of the admirable course in Freshman English 
conducted by Professor Hardie, first announced in the 
catalogue of 1903-4; and the good results were immediate 
and manifest. The students were not only taught the 
principles involved in good writing, but were made to apply 
them in many and varied exercises. Of course the careful 
reading and criticism of such a multitude of papers was a 
task beyond the power of one busy professor, already 
carrying a sufficiently heavy line of work. Some assistance 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 25 1 

was indispensable; so, after various temporary arrange- 
ments, this rather arduous service devolved upon Instruc- 
tor C. H. Gaines, 'oo — who also assumed charge of a 
course in argumentative composition, open to Sophomores 
and closely connected with the training in parliamentary 
practice and debate. For those desiring still further to 
cultivate their ability in writing, the courses in English 
literature, in fine arts, in the history of religions, and some 
others offered excellent opportunities. 

The teaching of English literature at St. Lawrence has 
been somewhat noteworthy. The subject was first intro- 
duced into the curriculum during the seventies, and was 
taught in what was then the usual manner, from a text- 
book. When this work was assigned to Professor C. K. 
Gaines, in 1879, as one of his rather numerous "extras," 
he at first used the same method, but soon became ex- 
tremely dissatisfied with it. He felt that his students were 
not studying literature at all, but merely trying to memorize 
more or less of a dry discourse on the subject, which 
many of them were ill prepared to understand, having 
read scarcely anything, — for, be it remembered, in those 
days little attention was paid to this matter in the public 
schools. Finally, in 1882, he adopted a new plan. Getting 
together a library, meager enough at the outset, he for- 
mulated a reading course, sufficiently flexible to meet vary- 
ing needs, with certain requirements and certain options; 
and so successfully was the system elaborated that, with 
slight modifications, it has been in use ever since. There 
was no attempt at literary dissection or textual study, but 
attentive reading was enforced by requiring the presen- 
tation of abstracts, a certain proportion of which were 
assigned as the basis of more extended critical exercises. 
Such a course, though now paralleled in many places, was 
then a complete novelty, and it was taken up with a 
zest that can hardly be realized by the students of to- 



252 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

day, — for whom the masterpieces of literature have often 
been staled by premature and injudicious handling. Along 
with this, for a time, Professor Gaines continued the use 
of a text-book; but soon, perceiving that he secured much 
more vital results by lecturing, he completely abandoned 
the text-book method. In the lectures, which are insepar- 
able from the prescribed reading, much attention is always 
given to the historical background and to causal relations. 
The labor involved in conducting such a course, with its 
extensive records and numerous papers, was found very 
great, especially as the classes were constantly growing in 
numbers. Since 19 12, however, the Professor has been 
largely relieved of this undue burden by the assistance of 
his son, Clarence H. Gaines, 'oo, whose long and responsible 
service in the publishing house of Harper and Brothers, 
and as a reviewer, has given him a practical knowledge 
of literary standards and values not often met in the class- 
room. In this department it is felt that the most valuable 
result is secured when, after a comprehensive survey of the 
subject, the student develops an abiding taste for what is 
really good in literature, and a habit of rapid but not 
uncritical reading. 

Another new departure by Professor Gaines was the 
inauguration of the courses in parliamentary practice and 
debate in 1886. In these courses the class was organized 
as an assembly, Professor Gaines usually acting as presid- 
ing officer. A ministry was formed, legislative bills were 
introduced and referred to committees, and an effort was 
made to have them favorably reported and passed. It 
was formerly the rule that each member must introduce 
at least two bills each session, and make the leading speech 
when his bill was before the assembly. He also had to take 
his turn in acting as secretary, always submitting his draft 
of the minutes to the professor for revision, and shared in 
the other duties pertaining to such an organization. The 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 2$3 

class thus received training not only in parliamentary pro- 
cedure but in public speaking and debate, and many lively 
discussions have taken place in these sessions on questions 
of world-wide interest. In recent years, with increasing 
numbers, the classes have been divided, the men and 
women being organized in separate assemblies, — an ar- 
rangement favorable to inexperienced speakers of either 
sex. All are required to take part, and all at least learn 
to stand up and present with reasonable lucidity and confi- 
dence whatever they have to offer. From time to time a 
period is devoted to criticism and counsel. It may be re- 
marked in passing that not the least important service ren- 
dered by this course, though incidental, is the opportunity 
and stimulus it affords the earnest student for research 
and the investigation of political and social problems. One 
hour each week is devoted to the study of parliamentary 
law and practice. 

Instruction in fine arts was inaugurated by Professor 
Hardie in 1898, and speedily proved successful in a re- 
markable degree; as conducted by him this department is 
accounted one of the most valuable, as it is manifestly 
one of the most popular, of the newer features of the 
curriculum. The courses are broad in their scope, dealing 
with human progress as revealed in architecture, sculpture, 
and painting in the various epochs of the world's history. 
It was soon apparent that the opportunities thus offered 
answered to a real need which had long been felt. As 
is well known, the aesthetic sense develops relatively late 
in youth, and these courses, coming at the proper time, 
serve admirably to bring out the latent appreciation of the 
ideal as it finds concrete expression in the world's richest 
treasures. Professor Hardie has been industrious in secur- 
ing reproductions of famous works in art and sculpture, 
and already has laid an excellent foundation for such a 
collection as is indispensable to a course of this character; 



254 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

and a valuable library of books on fine arts has recently 
been contributed by Mrs. Frederic Remington. The lecture 
room is fitted with lantern and screen, and many of the lec- 
tures are beautifully illustrated. This course does for the 
student in art what is elsewhere done for him in literature. 

If less than its importance would seem to warrant is 
said here about the department of mathematics, it is not 
because there has not been progress in this branch, as in 
all the others. But pure mathematics naturally does not 
admit of such changes and discoveries in the subject-matter 
as have marked the development of most other studies. 
St. Lawrence has been fortunate in having a succession 
of able men in this chair. Of the earlier of these suit- 
able mention has been made in previous chapters. From 
1883 to 1887 Professor Henry Priest taught both mathe- 
matics and physics; a period followed in which the mathe- 
matical work was committed to tutors and instructors of 
quite temporary tenure. It was not until the present incum- 
bent, Robert D. Ford, returned to his Alma Mater, and 
after a year's service as instructor accepted an appoint- 
ment to the chair of mathematics in 1896, that it became 
possible to give this department an adequate develop- 
ment. Under Professor Ford it has attained a deserved 
reputation of the thoroughness of the drill given. Twelve 
courses, some open to election in alternate years, are now 
offered. 

One of the later additions to the curriculum is the 
course in pedagogy, inaugurated by Professor Ford in 1901, 
organized in harmony with the requirements of the Depart- 
ment of Public Instruction of the State. It is designed 
particularly for those intending to enter the profession of 
teaching, and is always largely elected; it would seem a 
wise concession to the demand that a college education 
shall in some measure be a training for future professional 
life. Moreover, the science of education has made such 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 255 

remarkable progress in recent years as to be of general 
interest and value. This department was under the charge 
of Professor Ford from 1901 to 1912. In 1912-13, under 
special arrangements, it was conducted by Doctor James 
M. Payson of the School of Agriculture. Meanwhile, the 
Gaines Professorship having been established, this work 
was assigned to that chair, and was in the hands of Doctor 
John Murray Atwood during his brief incumbency, 191 2-14. 
Upon his resignation to assume the deanship of the Theo- 
logical School, the duty of conducting these courses de- 
volved upon the present holder of the chair, Professor 
Charles M. Rebert, — a man well fitted for the task by 
his previous training and experience. 

The departments of science were of late growth. This 
was due to the fact that not until comparatively recent 
years were any funds specially set apart for the endow- 
ment of a chair in this field. At first the sciences seem to 
have been taught — usually, but not always — by the pro- 
fessor of mathematics. Professor John W. Clapp, who was 
the first instructor in mathematics and is remembered by 
the students of the early days as a teacher of exceptional 
power, and subsequently Professor Nehemiah White, each 
served as a sort of ex officio professor of natural science. 
Professor Henry Priest, in the eighties, in addition to his 
regular duties taught physiology, botany, geology, miner- 
alogy, astronomy, and zoology. Later, President Gaines, 
who had himself taught the chemistry for many years, 
handed that subject also over to Professor Priest. Professor 
Ford likewise took his turn with a few of these subjects. 
When Doctor A. B. Hervey was elected to the presidency 
in 1888, he was named "Cummings Professor of Natural 
Science" — and the long-suffering members of the faculty, 
who had waited for this opportunity, turned over what 
sciences and other subjects they could to the genial, perhaps 
unsuspecting, president. Experience made him wiser, if not 



256 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

sadder. But some one had to give instruction in these 
studies, and it was thrust upon the man most capable, 
most willing, and presumed to have the most available 
time. But the hours at the disposal of the already bur- 
dened professors were limited, — and the fate of courses not 
definitely provided for would have been lamentable indeed, 
Had not those early teachers been both versatile in their 
attainments and rarely conscientious in the discharge of 
even these superadded duties. They had to be their own 
committee of ways and means. As President Gaines once 
said of those trying years, — "We had a vast amount of 
work to do, with few conveniences of any kind to work 
with. When we wanted books, or maps, or apparatus of 
any sort, even chairs and tables, to aid us in the class- 
room, we had to put our hands into our own pockets for 
the means. " Notwithstanding all this, many a young man 
had his interest in science permanently aroused by these 
earnest teachers. Professor Leslie A. Lee, one of the earli- 
est graduates, went almost directly to Bowdoin College, 
where he became one of the best-known authorities in 
natural science in the country. 

In the spring of 1872, Doctor James H. Chapin began 
his work as professor of geology and mineralogy. From 
that time until his death, twenty years later, he came to 
St. Lawrence with considerable regularity, on alternate 
years, to conduct classes in these subjects during certain 
months, usually in the spring. He was not a drill-master, 
and a shifty fellow could doubtless contrive to get through 
with a modicum of study. But Professor Chapin, though 
not, perhaps, what would be called an exact student, 
was a natural investigator, a charter member of the 
American Society for the Advancement of Science, and 
withal a man of the finest personality. He had travelled 
extensively, and was an indefatigable explorer and collector 
for his work at St. Lawrence. The possession of the pres- 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 257 

ent large mineralogical collections must be largely credited 
to his zeal. Such a man was a valuable asset to the 
University in those years. He did much to strengthen the 
curriculum where it had been lamentably weak, and con- 
tact with his eager mind and kindly spirit was a boon to 
any earnest student. The Chapin Professorship is a worthy 
memorial to this high-minded gentleman, and affords a 
channel through which the inspiration of his work may 
continue. 

The first instructor on the Chapin Foundation was 
William Newton Logan, Ph.D., who held this position 
from 1900 to 1903, and organized the work of the 
department on a broader basis than previous conditions 
had permitted. His successor, Frank Smith Mills, still 
farther extended its scope, especially in the direction of 
economic geology, and amplified the courses in the bio- 
logical sciences. The next incumbent, a man of quite 
exceptional qualifications, George Halcott Chadwick, thor- 
oughly reorganized the work in geology and mineralogy, 
one of the new features being a course in "oceanology." 
He also did original work of much interest in identifying 
portions of shore-line of the great glacial lake of this 
region. Field excursions became a regular and very 
significant feature of the class work. 

The "Chapin-Andrews Collection" of minerals — con- 
sisting in part of the specimens gathered and contributed 
by Professor J. H> Chapin, and in part of a remarkably 
valuable and beautiful collection made by William H. 
Andrews of Gouverneur, purchased in 1895 — was at first 
placed in the basement of Richardson Hall, where it was 
imperfectly available for any purpose. Later, the erection 
of Carnegie Hall provided ample space for displaying it 
satisfactorily, and Professor Chadwick was indefatigable in 
the work of arranging and classifying the material with 
a view to scientific use. It proved to be an immense 



258 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

labor, owing to past carelessness and long neglect, but 
in the end the task was completed with characteristic 
thoroughness. 

When once the little laboratory for chemical work, 
planned by Professor Henry Priest as previously related, 
had become an accomplished fact, the demand for courses 
of this character so increased that soon after Professor 
Edwin L. Hulett, then nominally acting as assistant, had 
practically assumed charge of the department, an arch 
was cut through the solid brick wall from the laboratory 
into what is now the class-room of Professor Gaines — 
where the traces are still visible despite the healing efforts 
of the architect — and the whole area thus opened up was 
devoted to experimental chemistry. When Carnegie Hall 
was erected in 1905, the enlargement of facilities and 
the addition of valuable appurtenances, including a large 
amount of new apparatus, made possible a great enrich- 
ment of the curriculum in this direction. The entire upper 
floor of this building was assigned to chemistry. Labora- 
tory courses multiplied. Nothing emphasizes more to the 
graduate of twenty years standing the advance that the 
college has made in this period than the number of well- 
equipped courses in chemistry and physics now open to the 
student, as compared with the meager opportunities avail- 
able when he was a student. For the erection of Carnegie 
Hall provided the department of physics also with new 
and admirable quarters and facilities for all branches of 
its work, — excellent equipment being provided by the 
generous gift of the Honorable A. Barton Hepburn for 
this purpose. Professor Henry Priest continued in charge 
until 191 1, when he was granted a year's leave of absence, 
and his son, Ward Curtis Priest, '07, became instructor, 
practically assuming the duties of the chair, to which he 
was formally appointed the following year, 191 2, as 
Hayward Professor of Physics. 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 259 

Compared with the biological sciences, such as zoology 
and botany, geology and mineralogy have hitherto received 
disproportionate attention. This is probably owing to the 
fact that interest in geological science antedated that in 
biology. "Natural History" is an old study, but biology 
was a suspected and somewhat decried science long after 
geology was thoroughly established in the college curric- 
ulum. At St. Lawrence the development of these de- 
partments followed the historical order. Today the eight 
courses in geology and mineralogy, including much field and 
laboratory work, leave little to be desired; and after the 
coming of Professor George H. Chadwick, and the equip- 
ment of his department with microscopes of a more modern 
type, the opportunities in biology also were much improved. 
Four good laboratory courses then became available to the 
student; and these have now been increased to eight, a 
new instructor, John G. Cheetham, '13, having been added 
to the teaching force as the assistant of Professor C. J. 
Sarle, the present head of the department. Hence this 
line of work is at last receiving the prominence in the 
curriculum which its intrinsic importance deserves. 

Throughout the first two decades of the life of the 
college, the conflict between the evolutionists and their 
opponents was raging. Men were accustomed to take 
sides according to their beliefs — or prejudices. Of course 
the theory was discussed in the class-rooms at St. Law- 
rence, and the instructors did not fail to reveal on which 
side they stood. President Gaines, who was no tyro in 
science, like Louis Agassiz strenuously and ably contro- 
verted the doctrine of the descent of man. He dominated 
the situation until the arrival of Professor Henry Priest; 
after that, the debate was really between these two cham- 
pions, the students delighting to carry the arguments of the 
one to the other in order to provoke further discussion. 
Doctor Priest's classes were not infrequently treated to 



260 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

highly interesting impromptu lectures on evolution, not 
scheduled in the curriculum but memorable incidents none 
the less. The favorite dodge of the youth who did not 
have his lesson was to start a discussion on this great 
theme, and rarely did it fail to save him. The Professor 
was not ignorant of the student's intent, but he was firmly 
convinced that the hour was spent more profitably thus 
than it would have been with the regular lesson. A simi- 
lar device was to raise some question regarding "tem- 
perance" — a subject on which Doctor Priest was very 
much in earnest. The plan often worked; for though the 
Professor saw through the trick at a glance and was not 
for a moment deceived — they all realized that — he 
considered that time could not be put to better use 
than by inculcating right ideas on a theme of such vital 
importance. 



THE WORK AND THE WORKERS 26l 



INAUGURATION ODE 

Composed by Professor George Robert Hardie, 'go, for the Inauguration of 
President Almon Gunnison, June 26, iqoo. 

Festis convenimus, alma mater, tuis, 
Te laude eximia qui efferimus pii, 
Atque hunc carminibus concinimus diem 
Faustis qui auspiciis venit. 

Grati te canimus diligimusque te, 
Parens optima, qua? distribuis tuis 
Cura perpetua, qua? manibus plenis, 
Omnes divitias tuas. 

Annis ex teneris in gremio tuo 
Nos amore colens adsiduo foves 
Dum prudens animos instituis nobis 
Praceptis sapiential. 

Semper tu floreas pro meritis tuis, 
Fortunata opibus tu niteas bonis, 
Tu jama egregia decorata sis, 
Annis provenientibus. 

Et iunclus tibi sit in precibus piis 
Quern fidens animi hoc l&tifico die 
Faustis ominibus constituis ducem 
Et rerum columen tibi. 

Incorrupta FIDES nudaque VERITAS 
Adsint qua? comites, ut priores, eum 
Dextra? sustineant, consiliis tua 
Reclurum sapientibus. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 

UNIFICATION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY 

ELECTION OF PRESIDENT GUNNISON — RICHARDSON 

PROFESSORSHIP — LEWIS PROFESSORSHIP TRANSFER OF 

CLINTON LIBERAL INSTITUTE TO CANTON COLE READ- 
ING ROOM — ATHLETIC FIELD CARNEGIE HALL 

RICHARDSON HALL REMODELLED WEATHER BUREAU 

STATION MINOR IMPROVEMENTS NEW DEPARTMENTS 

ADMINISTRATION OF FINANCES INCREASE OF EN- 
DOWMENT CHANGE IN MODE OF ELECTING TRUSTEES 

INCREASE IN NUMBER OF STUDENTS. 

THE report of President Atwood at commence- 
ment in 1899 foreshadowed his acceptance of the 
position of General Superintendent of the Uni- 
versalist Church, with duties similar to those upon which 
he had been engaged during the previous year. To the 
Board of Trustees, already impressed with the urgent 
need of more energetic measures for the advancement of 
the college, the situation thus created suggested the 
feasibility of uniting the administration of the two depart- 
ments in a single head, with such gain in business efficiency 
and economy in expenditure for salary as might thereby be 
effected. Accordingly a committee of trustees, consisting 
of Messrs. Foster L. Backus, R. E. Waterman, Charles 
H. Russell, the Reverend O. M. Hilton, and Mrs. Jean 
Brooks Greenleaf, was appointed to nominate a president 
of the University. This committee reported on November 
2, 1899, that the Reverend Almon Gunnison, D.D., of 




ALMON GUNNISON, D. D., L L. D. 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 263 

Worcester, Massachusetts, had been selected. It was 
believed that his personal qualifications and wide acquaint- 
ance made him peculiarly fitted to secure the increased 
resources of which the University was in such need, — 
an expectation which subsequent events amply justified. 
On Friday, November 3, he entered upon his duties. 
At about the same time Professor C. K. Gaines, then 
serving on the staff of the New York World in close 
association with Irving Bacheller, '82, and John L. Heaton, 
'8o, although he was receiving a much larger salary than 
could be offered at St. Lawrence, accepted a call to resume 
the chair he had previously held for so many years. 
Doctor J. C. Lee continued to act as professor of English 
until February 1, 1900. 

Unlike his predecessors in the presidential office, 
President Gunnison undertook no class-room work. He 
had been called to a larger task, — the expansion and more 
adequate endowment of the University as a whole; and 
to this he at once applied himself, permitting no minor 
considerations to interfere. The first large gift resulting 
from his efforts — delivered to him on Thanksgiving Day 
in the month in which he entered upon his office — was 
for the Theological School. It was presented by Mrs. 
William A. Richardson, of Worcester, Massachusetts, a 
former parishioner of President Gunnison and subsequently 
the donor of several other munificent gifts to the Uni- 
versity. With this money, amounting to twenty-four 
thousand dollars, a new professorship was established, and 
Doctor Orello Cone, a distinguished scholar whose previous 
service at St. Lawrence has already been described, was 
again called to the faculty of the Theological School, 
becoming Richardson Professor of Biblical Theology. 

But this was merely the beginning. Before the close 
of the year President Gunnison had also secured, as an 
addition to the funds of the College of Letters and Science, 



264 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ten thousand dollars toward the endowment of the Woman 
Professorship. This timely gift was from the children 
of Mrs. Harriet Lewis, of Meriden, Connecticut, in honor 
of whom the professorship thus made possible was named. 
The endowment now being complete the chair was estab- 
lished in 190 1, and Miss Mary Estelle Young, of Brooklyn, 
was chosen to be the first incumbent, as previously related. 
In 1900 a catastrophe which befell the Clinton Liberal 
Institute became the occasion of the incorporation of that 
school with St. Lawrence. In the year named the main 
building of the Institute was destroyed by fire. This 
institution, founded in 1832, originally located at Clinton, 
afterward at Fort Plain, had an honorable history, ranking 
among the leading secondary schools of the State. The 
multiplication of high schools had, however, brought to 
the Institute the fate experienced by many similar estab- 
lishments, not only in New York but in New England, — 
constantly decreasing attendance, with consequent impair- 
ment of income and threatened extinction. The fire only 
hastened what was inevitable. The building and equip- 
ment were gone, and the school had only about forty thou- 
sand dollars of available endowment. The same interests 
which established St. Lawrence had created the Institute; 
it was felt that, were an educational institution being 
founded under the same auspices today, it would take the 
form of a college rather than of an academy; and President 
Gunnison soon convinced its representatives that, under 
the existing conditions, the wishes of the founders would be 
most effectually carried out and the funds most wisely 
conserved by merging the Institute with the University. 
At a meeting of the trustees of the Institute held in Utica 
in April, 1901, the proposal was agreed to, and later the 
necessary authorization for the transfer of the charter and 
funds was given by the Regents of the University of the 
State of New York. The wisdom of this arrangement was 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 26$ 

generally acquiesced in. The autonomy of the Institute 
remains, its name is preserved, its board of trustees is 
perpetuated, and in the broader work and service of St. 
Lawrence University the purpose of its founders, "the 
public education and instruction of youths," is still carried 
on, more effectively than ever before. In addition to the 
forty thousand dollars endowment already in hand, a like 
amount is held subject to the life interest of a beneficiary. 
The late Reverend Daniel Ballou, a graduate of the Theo- 
logical School and long a trustee of the University, who for 
many years served as secretary of the Board of Trustees of 
the Institute, was active in the steps connected with the 
transfer of the school to Canton. An account of the 
Institute prior to its incorporation with the University is 
given in Chapter XXIII. 

President Gunnison next took up the task of providing 
the new buildings so greatly needed, and improving the 
material equipment of the University. The first step was 
the erection of the Cole Reading Room. Herring Library, 
though a substantial and in many ways admirable building, 
was never adequately heated, and was kept open only 
during certain hours on certain days each week; its 
usefulness was consequently much impaired. To bring the 
library into its proper place among the working forces of 
the University was one of the most immediate needs. 

Through the representations of the President, Mr. 
Edward H. Cole, of New York, became deeply interested 
in the project of building an adequate reading-room as an 
addition to the library; and in February, 1902, he told 
Doctor Gunnison to "go ahead and build the building," 
and he would pay the cost. Messrs. Huberty and Huds- 
well, of New York, accordingly prepared plans for a 
structure harmonizing with the original library building, 
of which the reading-room was to be an extension, but 
still with individuality of its own. It is built, like Herring 



266 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Library, of the beautiful and enduring Potsdam sandstone; 
it has a tasteful stone porch at the eastern entrance, an 
interior gallery, and a large rose-window representing the 
college seal, designed and presented by Messrs. J. and R. 
Lamb. The Cole Reading Room was completed in 1903, 
and the opening ceremonies, which included an address by 
Mr. Cole himself, were held during commencement week 
that year. The cost in round numbers was twenty-five 
thousand dollars, and Mr. Cole by gift and subsequent 
bequest further provided it with an endowment fund of 
ten thousand dollars. It has made convenient and com- 
fortable the use of the library, into which it directly opens, 
and is one of the most valuable contributions ever made to 
the general work of the University. 

An athletic field was the next acquisition. In the early 
days athletic sports were very primitive, and there was 
practically no equipment. Intercollegiate games were 
scarcely thought of. After the gymnasium was built 
there were occasional contests with teams from other 
colleges, and the need of better appliances was strongly 
felt. The old baseball ground north of Richardson Hall 
was not well graded, and it had no permanent seats. The 
County Fair Grounds, where the annual Field Day was 
held, were distant, inconvenient, and unsuitable. An 
athletic field of their own became the dream of the stu- 
dents; and finally, through the efforts of President Gunni- 
son, it became a reality. 

There is a bit of unwritten history in connection with 
its genesis. The President was in his study on the fore- 
noon of Baccalaureate Sunday in June, 1902, at work on 
the sermon he was to deliver in the afternoon. He had 
attended a game the day before, and the need of a suitable 
athletic field haunted him. He stopped the sermon and 
wrote a letter to Mr. Henry C. Deane, of Ogdensburg, 
asking him for five hundred dollars for the purchase of 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 267 

land for a field. He pictured the enthusiasm of the 
alumni at their meeting on Monday morning if such a gift 
were announced, and asked Mr. Deane to telephone his 
consent in time for announcement at chapel the next 
morning. The request aroused the interest of Mr. Deane; 
he decided to comply — and the gift was announced the 
next morning to the assembled students and alumni with 
the result which the President had predicted. Mr. Deane 
subsequently doubled the amount first promised, and an 
admirably located field of fourteen acres was purchased. 

There was still much to be done. The field looked 
fairly level, but it cost thirty-five hundred dollars to grade 
it properly. The lumber for the encircling fence came from 
the Carolinas at a cost of twelve hundred dollars. Eigh- 
teen hundred tons of crushed stone were put in the track. 
An excellent football field and baseball diamond were 
provided; also a grand-stand seating twelve hundred 
persons, and a pavilion for the girls, tennis courts, and the 
like — the final result being one of the best equipped of 
college fields. 

All this required money: it was made possible, in part 
by small gifts from many generous friends, but mainly 
through the untiring liberality of Mr. Thomas Weeks of 
New York, an old friend and parishioner of President 
Gunnison. He first responded to the President's earnest 
request by a present of two thousand dollars; to this he 
kept adding, until his contribution was upwards of thirteen 
thousand dollars. Still the track was unfinished — and 
the President was ashamed to ask the man who had 
already done so much to do more. Mr. Weeks, however, 
surmised the situation, and wrote to ask if the work was 
completed. Confession and explanation followed. "How 
much do you need to finish everything as you want it?" 
was the response. The sum was named, and the President 
was told to go ahead and complete the work. No further 



268 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

stop was made until the last cinder was laid. To Mr. 
Weeks's unstinted generosity is due the splendid result. 

At the beginning of President Gunnison's administra- 
tion, all the college work was done in the old college 
building erected in 1856. The department of chemistry 
had only two tables, and the equipment in physics was 
pitiably meager. Not only did the growth of the science 
courses make greater facilities imperative, but the increas- 
ing number of students demanded larger quarters. First, 
new rooms were fitted up in the old structure, but these 
additions were soon found inadequate; a new building had 
become a necessity. For three and a half years President 
Gunnison persevered in the effort to turn in this direction 
the well-known generosity of Mr. Andrew Carnegie. In 
this he was strongly seconded by Irving Bacheller, '82, — 
a personal friend of Mr. Carnegie, and at times a guest in 
his castle in Scotland. At length, just as the year 1904 
was coming to a close, the President brought to Canton 
the inspiring news of the gift by Mr. Carnegie of fifty 
thousand dollars to erect a new building for the work in 
science. The students were forthwith given a holiday, and 
held a celebration in the gymnasium during the evening. 

Work was begun as soon as weather conditions per- 
mitted, and the corner-stone was formally laid on June 
13, 1905, during commencement week, the chief address 
being given by Doctor Charles F. Wheelock, of the State 
Department of Education. It is noteworthy that there 
were present on this occasion three persons, General E. A. 
Merritt, Mr. Albert Farmer, and Mrs. Elizabeth Nichols, 
who had seen the corner-stone of the first college building 
laid in 1856. A year of busy toil and preparation followed; 
but when the date of commencement, 1906, was reached, 
all was complete, and the University was able to celebrate 
the fiftieth anniversary of its founding with great eclat. 
A notable feature, of course, was the dedication of the new 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 269 

building, now ready for use. It was at this time also that 
a station of the United States Weather Bureau was 
established in close connection with the University, to be 
housed for a time in Carnegie Hall; and apropos of this 
an address was delivered by the Honorable Willis L. 
Moore, then Chief of the Bureau, before an immense 
concourse of alumni and friends gathered in the gymna- 
sium. But the most remarkable and permanently valuable 
utterance called forth by this anniversary celebration was 
the memorable address, entitled "The History of St. 
Lawrence University for Fifty Years," prepared and 
delivered by former President A. B. Hervey. This was 
printed in full in the anniversary number of The Laurentian 
then issued, and remains the most adequate brief account 
of the development and spirit of the University. 

Carnegie Hall is a substantial three-story brick build- 
ing, plain and dignified in its architecture, and admirably 
adapted to its purpose. The work was done in a thorough 
manner; the building is well lighted, the halls are wide, the 
rooms commodious. In the basement, besides a heating 
plant which supplies both Carnegie Hall and Richardson 
Hall, are installed an engine-room and work-shop with 
dynamo and all the usual tools and machinery, a gas 
plant, an assay room, and dark-rooms for photographic 
work. The first floor above is devoted to physics, the 
second to mathematics, biology, geology, mineralogy, and 
the mineralogical collections. The third story is wholly 
occupied by the department of chemistry. 

On the completion of the building, five thousand 
dollars was given for the purchase of apparatus by the 
Honorable A. Barton Hepburn of New York, a former 
trustee and an honorary alumnus, to whom the University 
has since become indebted for a still larger benefaction. 
The furniture of the building was purchased with funds 
contributed by the alumni. 



27O SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The complete removal of the work in science to Car- 
negie Hall left the original college building free for the use 
of other departments. This sturdy old structure had 
housed all the students during the first half century. 
Time was when it had contained the library, the reading- 
room, the chapels and recitation rooms of both schools, 
and several Greek-letter society rooms, besides the rooms 
used for dormitory purposes and the dining-hall of the 
theological students. Its iron-clad winding stairs had 
clattered under the tramp of many generations of eager 
and vociferous youths. Students had written on its walls 
and carved in the wood of its unpolished oaken benches 
names that have repeatedly appeared upon these pages; 
the aroma of tradition and romance clung persistently 
about its dingy walls. Down the well-hole of the winding 
stairway tradition relates that a heavy stove had once 
been dropped with devastating results, — a patch of newer 
wood in the flooring of the hall being pointed to as proof. 
The building was heated by over twenty of these stoves, 
the fuel for which the steward hoisted through the well- 
hole by means of a pulley every day after four o'clock. 
In spite of numerous minor changes, the interior arrange- 
ments of this ancient building were ill suited to present 
conditions. 

The rearrangements involved in the removal of so 
much of the college work to Carnegie Hall gave occasion 
for more or less reconstruction, and it was desired to make 
the accommodations of the departments that remained as 
satisfactory as those in the new building. Mrs. William 
A. Richardson, who had already endowed a professorship, 
was asked to furnish the funds and generously complied. 
Plans were prepared, and on the day after commencement 
in 1906 a troop of workmen invaded the building. The 
solidity of the old work proved not only a surprise but an 
obstacle to the reconstructors; the original architects had 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 27I 

not contemplated change, and they had produced a 
building not only tasteful in outline and proportion but 
sound to the core. In external appearance the character- 
istics of the old structure, so dear to the early graduates, 
have been carefully preserved, but the interior was com- 
pletely transformed. Partitions were removed, and larger 
lecture rooms installed. Adequate fire-escapes were pro- 
vided, and a new stairway of modern design was put in, 
— for the old winding stair, though picturesque and a 
part of the staging of many traditions, was no longer 
considered either adequate or safe. Stained glass windows 
were added in memory of John Stebbins Lee, Absalom 
Graves Gaines, Jonas Sheldon Conkey, Barzillai Hodskin, 
George Robinson, and William A. Richardson. Modern 
equipment with respect to ventilation, plumbing, steam 
heat, and electric light completed the transformation that 
was witnessed when the building was opened for use at 
the beginning of the fall term in 1906. The cost of the 
work, amounting to about fifteen thousand dollars, was 
far in excess of the sum originally solicited, but the gen- 
erous donor responded to every new suggestion, seeming 
anxious only that the work should be fully carried out. 
In recognition of her munificence in this and other ways, 
and in furtherance of her desire that the gift be a memo- 
rial to her husband, the late William A. Richardson, of 
Worcester, Massachusetts, the trustees, at their annual 
meeting in 1906, named the reconstructed building Rich- 
ardson Hall. 

Undoubtedly the acquisition of Carnegie Hall and its 
excellent equipment, with the thorough adaptation of 
Richardson Hall to present-day needs, marks a turning 
point in the development of the college and its efficiency. 
Real progress in many lines now became possible; work 
of the most modern type could be carried on. There 
were still many limitations and many occasions for self- 



272 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

sacrifice; but there was no longer any need to be apolo- 
getic in speaking of St. Lawrence, — no longer anything 
that demanded the veil of charity and affection. 

In 1906 the University purchased the Lee property at 
the corner of Park and Lincoln Streets, — a building 
almost as closely associated with the college history as 
any that stand on the campus; and on the acquisition of 
a farm for the School of Agriculture, the Mahoney house, 
which stood between the old college field and the new 
farm property, was bought and moved to the vacant 
portion of the lot on the south side of the Lee house. 
These two buildings have been put in thorough repair, 
and are respectively occupied by Chi Zeta Sigma and Pi 
Beta Phi as chapter houses. 

It has already been noted that in 1906 a United States 
Weather Bureau station was established at the University. 
This at first occupied rooms in Carnegie Hall, but in 1909 
a new building for the station was erected by the United 
States government on a lot adjoining the School of Agricul- 
ture. The official in charge has been raised to the rank 
of forecaster; he also gives instruction in meteorology in 
connection with the college. 

Beside these large additions to the equipment of the 
University, numerous minor improvements were made to 
the grounds and buildings. By the gift of the Reverend 
John W. Hinds, T.S. '72, the small theological chapel in 
Fisher Hall was reconstructed, and the building redecorated 
throughout. Through the generosity of other donors, 
concrete walks costing one thousand dollars were laid, the 
grounds were improved and more carefully tended, various 
accessories were provided for the buildings, many books 
were added to the library, a fine-arts room was equipped, 
and several new portraits were added to the excellent 
collection which already adorned the walls. The buildings 
have ever since been carefully kept up, and their attractive 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 273 

appearance has had a salutary effect. Adequate facilities 
enable professors to work much more effectively than 
formerly, as well as with more comfort. The money for 
effecting all these improvements was obtained by President 
Gunnison without drawing on the regular income of the 
University. 

The incorporation of the Brooklyn Law School as a 
department of St. Lawrence University in 1903 calls for 
mention here as a notable event of the early years of 
President Gunnison's administration; and the same is 
true of the establishment of the State School of Agriculture 
under the control of the president and trustees of the 
University in 1906. Both these topics are fully treated in 
subsequent chapters. But it should be noted that, with 
the rapid extension of the School of Agriculture, there are 
now about twenty buildings (including fraternity houses) 
devoted to the service of the University and standing on 
or near the campus; and from the crown of the hill — 
where the original college building stood alone until 1871, 
and had but two or three companions even in 1900 — the 
college grounds, for half a century limited to twenty-six 
acres, sweep down to the banks of Little River, more than 
half a mile away. To the plans, and initiative, and 
tireless energy of President Gunnison these momentous 
changes are preeminently due. 

The administration of the details of the finances of 
the University and the oversight of the property and 
current expenditures, especially since the establishment of 
the Law School and the School of Agriculture, have come 
to be no inconsiderable task. The Executive Committee 
now holds regular biweekly meetings, and its sessions are 
usually several hours in length. Especial credit is due 
the resident members, Messrs. Cleaveland, Conkey, Beard, 
and Payson, for their efficient and unwearying service. 
A progressive policy is maintained; the increasing needs 



274 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

of the various departments are suitably provided for, but 
disbursements are carefully kept within the available 
resources of the institution. The growing complexity of 
the affairs of the corporation has greatly augmented the 
duties of the secretary of the board, Frank N. Cleave- 
land, 'yj, and the treasurer, George S. Conkey, '83. The 
latter was elected in 1899, on the retirement of the late 
George Robinson; and the duties of the office have since 
become so extensive that the treasurer now devotes his 
entire time to the service of the University. 

Along with the extraordinary advance in material 
equipment during the first ten years of President Gunni- 
son's administration, the productive funds were also 
substantially increased. During that period the college 
received bequests amounting, in round numbers, to forty- 
four thousand dollars, besides the bequest of ten thousand 
dollars for the endowment of the Cole Reading Room and 
a like sum to complete the endowment of the Lewis 
Professorship, as before mentioned. In addition to the 
above, gifts amounting to twenty thousand dollars for the 
establishment of scholarships had been secured through 
the efforts of President Gunnison; so that the endowment 
funds of the college, which at the beginning of his admin- 
istration in 1899 amounted to about two hundred and ten 
thousand dollars, had been increased to more than two 
hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars in 1910, — and 
at the same time the income of the endowment of the 
Clinton Liberal Institute, amounting to about forty 
thousand dollars, had become available in the service of 
the University. Again, the income from tuition had 
swelled from about two thousand dollars in 1899 to con ~ 
siderably more than six thousand in 1910, — a result due 
in part to increase in the number of students, and in part 
to the raising of the rate of tuition to sixty dollars a year. 
Moreover, the special fees, necessarily imposed to meet 



THE EPOCH OF EXPANSION 275 

the increasing expenditures for laboratory material and 
the like, amounted in 1910 to about sixteen hundred 
dollars. As a result, between 1899 and 19 10 the total 
income of the college had been more than doubled, — 
and this had taken place in the face of unavoidable 
reductions in the rate of income from investments. 

Originally the Board of Trustees of the University was 
a self-perpetuating body. By chapter 123 of the laws of 
1868 the election of trustees was transferred to the New 
York State Convention of Universalists. In recent years, 
with the rapid growth of the college and the establishment 
of the Law School and the School of Agriculture, many 
came to feel that the conditions under which this arrange- 
ment arose had been outgrown, and that while the relations 
of the University to its honored founders and the interests 
they represented should never be lost sight of, it was 
nevertheless desirable to open the way for less restricted 
control of its affairs. Partly for these reasons, and partly 
with a view to making the institution eligible to the 
benefits of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement 
of Teaching, a proposal was made to the New York State 
Universalist Convention to secure legislation by which a 
separate board of trustees would be created for the 
Theological School and the original manner of election of 
the trustees of the University restored. The proposal was 
agreed to, and a committee appointed to draft a bill 
embodying the proposed change. The committee accord- 
ingly prepared a bill which, having been approved by the 
trustees of the convention, was subsequently introduced 
in the legislature, and on March 16, 1910, was enacted as 
chapter 39 of the laws of 1910. The University thus 
became legally — as in practice it had been from the 
earliest days — wholly independent of sectarian control. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 

TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ADDED TO THE ENDOW- 
MENT BY THE EFFORTS OF PRESIDENT GUNNISON 

HIS ARDUOUS CAMPAIGN — THE CELEBRATION — THE 

NEW SALARY SCALE THE DEATH OF DOCTOR HENRY 

PRIEST THE RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT GUNNISON 

— TRIBUTES AND HONORS — THE FAREWELL. 

OF course the enlargement of the activities of 
the college incident to the expansion described 
in the preceding chapter was necessarily accom- 
panied by a corresponding increase in expenditure. The 
income, although now comparatively generous, had hardly 
kept pace with the imperative demands of the altered 
conditions; even the new buildings, indispensable as they 
were, had added a serious burden in fixed charges to 
meet which there was no adequate provision. Moreover, 
the increase in the number of students demanded an 
increase of the teaching force; and it was felt, also, that 
a substantial addition to the salaries of the older members 
of the faculty would be only a tardy acl: of justice, — 
for, notwithstanding the gradual enhancement of the cost 
of living, professors who had served the institution faith- 
fully for twenty or thirty years, after bearing all the 
hardships of its days of greatest stress were still toiling, 
with ever augmenting tasks and little assistance, for 
meager stipends utterly insufficient to meet their needs. 

Realizing this aspect of the situation, the indefatigable 
President next applied his energies to the arduous task 
of securing for St. Lawrence a more adequate endowment 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 277 

than anything yet attempted. First he presented the case 
to the trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, who finally, 
in 1910, voted to grant St. Lawrence fifty thousand dollars, 
on condition that one hundred and fifty thousand more be 
raised within a specified time. The success of the appli- 
cation was largely due to the hearty endorsement of Doctor 
Wallace Buttrick, Secretary of the General Education 
Board, himself a native of the "North Country." The 
fulfilment of the difficult condition imposed — thereby 
providing the growing college with funds sufficient for 
its proper maintenance — was the culminating achieve- 
ment of President Gunnison's administration. 

Despite the President's remarkable resourcefulness, his 
tireless energy and unfailing courage, — despite the fact 
that he was aided by many friends and supported with 
steadfast loyalty by all connected with the college, this 
last and greatest undertaking proved also the hardest 
and most disheartening of all that he had ever essayed. 
The heartbreaking strain that he was under is apparent 
in many letters, especially those written during the fall 
of 191 1 when the crisis was reached; and it is remembered 
that certain overburdened members of the faculty, them- 
selves near the breaking point of strength and courage, 
on reading some of these were heartened in their work, — 
for each one thought, "If the President is bearing all this, 
I too will bear up somehow and do my part." 

The campaign was begun in the summer of 1910, and 
the first steps were comparatively easy. The Honorable 
A. Barton Hepburn, then president of the Chase National 
Bank of New York City, promptly responded to President 
Gunnison's appeal by a subscription of twenty-five thou- 
sand dollars, which later, in one of the darkest hours of 
the canvass, was increased to thirty thousand. It will be 
recalled that Mr. Hepburn had previously, in 1905, made 
a liberal gift for the equipment of Carnegie Hall; and all 



278 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

in all, no friend of the college has ever rendered it more 
vital service than this generous donor. Yet the liberality 
of this gift was closely rivalled by that of the next, a sub- 
scription of fifteen thousand dollars by President George 
F. Baker of the First National Bank of New York; and 
this was subsequently increased to twenty-five thousand 
dollars. Mr. Mark Cummings, of Chicago, whose father 
was one of the earliest benefactors of the University, 
gave ten thousand dollars. John S. Miller, '69, also of 
Chicago, gave five thousand dollars, the largest gift by 
any alumnus, — though a multitude gave generously ac- 
cording to their means, and in many cases at critical 
moments when the whole enterprise seemed trembling in 
the balance. Mr. S. H. Knox, of Buffalo, gave five thou- 
sand dollars; and Mr. Thomas Weeks, who had already 
contributed so many thousands for the Weeks Athletic 
Field, now subscribed five thousand more. 

The time-limit, within which the amount must be 
completed in order to secure the appropriation, had orig- 
inally been designated as July 1, 191 1; but when that 
date was reached the work was still unfinished, and the 
General Education Board magnanimously extended the 
period to December 15. Even then, little was accom- 
plished during the summer; but with the opening of the 
fall term President Gunnison left Canton resolved never 
to return until the full amount was raised. Yet the 
richest fields — never in the case of St. Lawrence very 
extensive — appeared to be quite exhausted. Additions 
to the fund now came slowly, and for the most part in 
small subscriptions. It began to seem to the President 
that the long and strenuous campaign was lost, that all 
hope of ever completing the endowment was at an end; 
and if this were so, it would mean the cessation of prog- 
ress at St. Lawrence for many a year, and perhaps ulti- 
mate downfall. 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 279 

But small contributions, if they be numerous enough, 
are just as good as those that are large, — and they may 
be even better, in that they represent a greater total of 
loyalty and love. It was just at this darkest hour of the 
canvass that "the spirit of 1886" began to reassert itself, 
and the refrain, "They will rally to the Scarlet and the 
Brown," then first sung and so often repeated since, 
again began to find expression in deeds. Once more the 
professors thrust their hands deep in their almost empty 
pockets and contributed what they could to the college 
they were serving on starvation wages. And then, largely 
on the initiative of H. B. Adsit, '12, the undergraduates, 
stirred by the old spirit, on December 6 paraded the 
town with banners and songs, and out of their own pocket 
money, present and prospective, subscribed a total amount- 
ing to more than a thousand dollars. And the townspeople 
too were roused, and although they had already made sub- 
scriptions to the amount of about ten thousand dollars 
(and nobody in Canton is wealthy) they now, as the out- 
come of a hasty canvass conducted by Professor Hulett 
and others, contributed about sixteen hundred more lest 
the great enterprise fail. 

The news of all this reached President Gunnison in 
New York just at the critical moment when all his efforts 
seemed about to end in defeat for lack of the last few 
thousands. Then came a timely gift of five thousand 
dollars from Mrs. Emma P. Benton, the generous bene- 
factor who gave Canton its public library. Greatly 
heartened, the President exerted himself to the utmost, 
and on December 14 was able to announce that his great 
task was triumphantly completed. 

On President Gunnison's return to Canton, a few 
days later, he was met at the train by the whole student 
body, full of enthusiasm, greeting him with cheers and 
songs. On the evening of December 19, the students 



28o SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

gave a dinner in his honor in the gymnasium. It was a 
notable occasion. Doctor Henry Priest presided, and the 
speaking, fraught with deep feeling, was maintained at 
no ordinary level of power and interest. Any detailed 
report of the addresses is impossible here; but among the 
most memorable was that delivered by Williston Manley, 
'88, prime mover in the remarkable student rally of 1886, 
who described with great vividness the scenes of that 
stirring time and the conditions which then prevailed, com- 
paring them with the series of events of which this ban- 
quet was the happy conclusion. Professor C. K. Gaines, 
who had been designated to speak for the faculty, re- 
counted with the vital touch of one who remembered 
every act and circumstance the long and arduous service 
of those who had borne the heat and burden of the day, 
and had given, with unfailing devotion, the best years of 
their lives, and in some cases life itself, that the college 
might live; and now, he concluded, through the untiring 
and able efforts of President Gunnison, the hour of 
triumph and deliverance had come. President Gunnison 
himself, as the guest of honor, made the final address, 
describing his great undertaking, its apparently insuper- 
able difficulties, and the means by which it had been 
accomplished. He paid high tribute to those whose gen- 
erosity had made success possible, and gave thanks to 
all, both small and great, for their steady support, speak- 
ing with especial earnestness of the encouragement he 
had received from the loyalty and zeal of the undergrad- 
uates, whose recent action had given the canvass the 
impetus needed in its closing hours. 

This was the local celebration; but of course the 
President received congratulations from every quarter, 
and at the ensuing commencement, in June, 191 2, his 
great achievement was suitably recognized and rewarded 
by the action of the Board of Trustees. At the same 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 28 1 

time a salary scale, based on length of service, was adopted 
for the faculty, and the remuneration was made as ade- 
quate as the funds available for this purpose warranted. 
Thus at last the patient labor and self-sacrifice of these 
devoted men found due recognition, — in the case of as 
many as had lived to see the day of consummation. 

Unhappily one of the most worthy was hot long to 
enjoy the fruits of this action. Professor Henry Priest, 
whose once rugged health and vigor had been for some 
time declining, had been granted a well-earned "sab- 
batical year,'' partly spent in travel, in 1911-12. In the 
fall of 191 2 he returned to his college duties, apparently 
much recuperated, and was entering upon his work with 
characteristic zeal and zest. It was a great shock to all 
when, on the morning of Friday, September 27, he was 
struck down by death on the very scene of his labors, 
almost in the presence of his classes; yet it was doubtless 
just such an end as this brave, unwearying, able man 
would have chosen. For thirty years he had served the 
college; for twenty-two years he had been its Dean; 
and great is the debt of St. Lawrence to Doctor Priest. 
The issue of The Laurentian for October, 191 2, is almost 
wholly devoted to tributes to his memory. Much men- 
tion of his work and character has already appeared on 
these pages. 

The death-toll levied on the faculty of St. Lawrence 
University during President Gunnison's administration 
was heavy. Doctor John Stebbins Lee died in 1902; 
Doctor Absalom Graves Gaines in 1903; Doctor Orello 
Cone in 1905; Doctor Henry Priest in 1912; Doctor 
Henry Prentis Forbes in 191 3. All these had rendered 
the University long and distinguished service, of which 
due mention has been made in previous chapters. 

President Gunnison was now nearly seventy years of 
age, and it soon became evident that his health was 



282 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

seriously impaired. It is easy to see in retrospect — 
though at the time it was realized neither by others nor 
by himself — that his vital forces had been heavily taxed 
by his great labors for the University, especially in those 
final efforts described above. It was the wish and hope 
of all that he might long enjoy the fruits of his work and 
the honors of his office; but the daily burden was becom- 
ing too great for his strength. On March 2, 1914, he 
passed that crucial milestone in the life of man, the age 
of "threescore years and ten," and at the ensuing com- 
mencement, in his annual report to the Board of Trustees, 
President Gunnison said: "It has been my intention dur- 
ing my entire occupancy of office to retire when I had 
reached the age of seventy years; for I recognize the fact 
that there is a time to be young and a time to be old, 
and I have always dreaded lagging superfluous on the 
stage. Old men for counsel, young men for action, is 
the law of life, and the presidency of St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity requires a man of action, as well as a man of 
counsel. I would say that beyond the fact that the cal- 
endar is against me I have no intimation that age has 
yet fastened its fangs upon me — but the scars I received 
as I passed the seventieth milestone are, I fear, permanent 
decorations; and while I can ignore facts, we have to 
succumb to figures. I am seventy years of age, and my 
good wife reminds me that I have got to stop calling my- 
self young. Gentlemen, you will all have to come to it, 
and I tell you, you won't like it." 

He went on to state that for some time he had been 
intending to resign at this meeting. Of course there was 
earnest remonstrance; yet none could presume to urge, 
at least with such insistence as natural feelings prompted, 
that President Gunnison should continue longer under a 
strain which, as subsequent events made clear, might 
soon have proved fatal. Hence, after a brief interval, the 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 283 

President presented his formal resignation, to take effect 
November 1, 1914, on the completion of his fifteenth year 
of service; and this was reluctantly accepted. The fol- 
lowing testimonial was unanimously adopted, and spread 
upon the minutes as part of the permanent record: 

"Fifteen years ago Doctor Gunnison relinquished a 
congenial pastorate to accept the call of St. Lawrence 
University to become its President. 

"In this new field he found conditions such as would 
have discouraged one less resolute. The endowment of 
the institution was meager; the classes small; the faculty 
insufficiently paid; the buildings and equipment inadequate. 

"Doctor Gunnison, with the aid of a loyal faculty, 
staunch alumni, and a host of friends, and equipped with 
scholarly attainments, executive ability, unlimited re- 
sourcefulness, a most charming personality, and dynamic 
enthusiasm, has in a few years achieved the greater St. 
Lawrence of today. 

"During his stewardship the endowment has grown 
from #210,000 to $562,000; the student body has quad- 
rupled; there have been added the departments of Law 
and Agriculture; the receipts from tuition have increased 
from $2,800 to $9,288;* the buildings have grown from 
four to fourteen; the campus area has been multiplied 
many times; a magnificent athletic field has been pro- 
vided; the older buildings have been reconstructed; the 
faculty has been enlarged and its compensation made 
adequate; old friends have been retained and hosts of 
new ones acquired. 

"Any public expression which we may give of our 
esteem for Doctor Gunnison and of our appreciation of 
the magnificent work which he has performed during his 
incumbency must, because of human limitations, be mis- 

1 The total income of the college in 1899, as reported by the Treasurer, was 
$12,522.69. The total income of the college in 1914 was $38,070.70. 



284 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

erably inadequate to express our affection for the man, 
and our admiration and gratitude for the splendid results 
of his work. We recognize the sacrifice he has made in 
the interest of St. Lawrence by devoting to its upbuild- 
ing and permanence the golden years of his life. Our 
gratitude and good wishes will follow Doctor Gunnison 
always." 

On October 24, just before the resignation of President 
Gunnison was to take effect, the Board of Trustees, in 
recognition of his extraordinary services, conferred upon 
him the title of President Emeritus, with an honorarium 
of one thousand dollars per annum. At about the same 
time, October 23, at the Convocation held in Albany, the 
evening session was devoted to tributes in honor of the 
two distinguished educators who were then just retiring 
from active service, Doctor J. M. Taylor of Vassar, and 
Doctor Almon Gunnison of St. Lawrence. The address 
in honor of the latter was delivered by the Honorable 
Ledyard P. Hale, '76, who spoke, in part, as follows: 

"I could not allow this convocation to go by without 
testifying in public on behalf of everybody who has an 
interest in St. Lawrence University, to the quality as 
well as the quantity of service rendered to that institution 
by President Gunnison in his fifteen years' administration. 

"St. Lawrence University is not a university in the 
modern acceptation of that term, and in fact never was 
and never was intended to be. But in 1856 the terms 
'college' and 'university' were not distinguished as to 
meaning, and anything was a university that undertook 
to do more than conduct the old-fashioned college; and 
it was intended at that time that there should be, in addi- 
tion to the college, a theological school and a law school. 
The theological school was established, and later the law 
school was established, but was subsequently discontinued 
for many years. 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 285 

"St. Lawrence University is a college, and it answers 
the same function in that region of the State of New 
York north of the Adirondacks in the St. Lawrence valley 
that Middlebury College exercises, and has for more than 
one hundred years, in the State of Vermont. The St. 
Lawrence County people came almost wholly from Ver- 
mont, and they brought with them the ideas of education 
and morality that were prevalent in that State. As 
great an observer and as accurate a man in the statement 
of his observations as the author, Irving Bacheller, has 
said, and said after thought, that in St. Lawrence County 
and in Franklin County and in all that region lying be- 
tween the Adirondacks and the St. Lawrence River are 
today found more perfect examples of New England 
character, habits, and modes of thought than exist 
in any quarter of New England except solely in 
Vermont. 

"So that we have had there an institution which has 
been of use to us. Fifteen years ago it was threatened 
with the necessity of closing its doors unless the endow- 
ment could be permanently increased. It was in the 
stress of need of actual funds for continued life when Presi- 
dent Gunnison was called to its presidency. I am glad 
to say that every prediction that was made for him by 
his friends — and I was one of them — has been more 
than fulfilled. His actual accomplishment in the office of 
president of that institution has been greater than any 
friend of his could possibly have foretold. 

"He has more than quadrupled the endowment. He 
has more than quadrupled the buildings. Under his 
administration the number of students has more than 
doubled; the amount paid in for tuition has more than 
quadrupled; and along with it all has gone an increase 
in the fibre and the character of the faculty, and of the 
teaching, and of the administration." 



286 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The speaker closed by citing and applying a portion 
of the poem printed at the end of this chapter. 

Doctor Gunnison must have found the receiving of 
congratulations and honors during the closing hours of 
his presidency almost as arduous as any part of his pre- 
vious service. Hastening back from Albany he attended 
the session of the Board of Trustees at which he was 
created President Emeritus, and in the evening received 
the greetings of a multitude of friends, both those con- 
nected with the college and many others, at a final recep- 
tion held in the gymnasium. The crowning event of this 
occasion was the presentation of a silver loving-cup, 
suitably inscribed in Latin, the address being made in 
this case also by the Honorable Ledyard P. Hale, '76, 
followed by a response by Doctor Gunnison in which joy 
and pathos mingled as he thanked his friends and bade 
them farewell, — with a promise that this should by no 
means be the final leave-taking which his subsequent 
illness unhappily brought to naught. 

Among the various events to which the resignation of 
President Gunnison gave rise, the service in the chapel 
on Friday morning, October 30, was the most homelike 
and touching. It was distinctively the farewell of the 
University to the honored and beloved President. The 
students of the College of Letters and Science and the 
Theological School, and the faculties of the two depart- 
ments, assembled together and in a simple, informal serv- 
ice, arranged by a committee of students of which Hal 
T. Kearns, '15, was chairman, gave expression to their 
esteem and their sorrow. The exercises were opened 
appropriately by the singing of "The Scarlet and the 
Brown. " The Dean of the Theological School, Doctor 
J. M. Atwood, voiced the common sentiments and emo- 
tions of the hour in a prayer of exceeding fitness. Pro- 
fessor C. K. Gaines, who had again been assigned the duty 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 287 

of speaking in behalf of the faculty, was then called upon. 
As this address comprised a remarkably concise and lucid 
presentation of the work accomplished by President Gun- 
nison at St. Lawrence by one who had been in closest 
touch with the college life for more than forty years and 
had known all its vicissitudes, the greater part of it is 
here given. Said Professor Gaines: 

"It is with a feeling of reluctance and much hesitation 
that I undertake to speak on this occasion. Not because 
of any reluctance to pay my sincere tribute to Doctor 
Gunnison for his great work — anything but that — but 
because mere words seem so weak and inadequate when 
set against deeds. And the great work of Doctor Gunni- 
son in building up St. Lawrence University is expressed 
in deeds. It is written across the campus in brick and 
stone, for all to see; it is written in the archives of our 
college, literally in letters of gold. 

"A certain note of sadness is natural at such a time 
as this. The hour of leave-taking is always sad; I feel 
it and we all feel it strongly this morning. But I do not 
intend to sound that note today; I shall not mar this 
occasion with any words of sadness. We are met to do 
honor to Doctor Gunnison; to pay our heartfelt tribute 
when, his great task successfully accomplished, he seeks 
well-earned respite from his arduous labors. Let it be an 
hour, not of sadness, but of triumph. 

"In the case of a man of really great achievement, I 
feel that the highest tribute which any one can pay is to 
make plain what he has done. What this is some of the 
older members of the faculty know well already; others 
less fully; and the undergraduates, I feel, have but a very 
imperfect knowledge of it. They do not clearly realize 
that things on the hill were not always much as they see 
them now. Well, I cannot tell it all; time would not 
serve. But out of the abundance furnished by Doctor 



288 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Gunnison, I will endeavor to set forth some part of what 
he has accomplished. 

"Fifteen years ago St. Lawrence was a very shaky 
proposition. After almost half a century of slow but 
intensely vital growth, there had come a serious check in 
its development. The classes, always small, were getting 
smaller. The college spirit, so strong in earlier years, was 
at the lowest ebb that I have ever known at St. Lawrence. 
The endowment was still pitifully inadequate, with little 
prospect of relief. To many — and of these I certainly 
was one — a sudden collapse of the whole college edifice 
seemed imminent. 

"How many among you realize what a stressful and 
critical period the years just past have been for weak 
colleges everywhere? If any in this time of rapid growth 
did not grow, they were threatened with extinction. This 
was the alternative — either they must quickly show them- 
selves worthy and able to live, or they must die. 

"At such a moment we looked abroad for a man who 
could save the college and assure its future. When I say 
'we,' I mean some of the older members of the faculty, 
all the board of trustees, and many loyal alumni. We 
were all oppressed with a heavy sense of responsibility. 
If we made a mistake — Heaven help the college! We 
looked, and we saw one man — one man in whom we had 
faith that he could do this work — Doctor Gunnison. And 
we made no mistake. 

"To persuade Doctor Gunnison to undertake this dis- 
heartening task was not easy. But he had always believed 
in the college and loved it. He could not resist its appeal. 
And a strong man, conscious of power to do and seeing 
the way, is confident where others might shrink. Though 
with natural reluctance, still he accepted the call, and in 
the fall of 1899 became President of St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity. 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 289 

"Were we justified in our choice? Was he justified in 
his acceptance? The whole campus, and the long line of 
students who marched across it to this meeting, are the 
sufficient answer. But let me indicate briefly. 

"In the year 1900 the graduating class numbered 
seventeen; in 1908, fifty-one — three times that number; 
and in 1912 sixty-six received their diplomas — the number 
being almost quadrupled. And the college spirit, from its 
lowest ebb, had risen again to full tide, so that a long 
column of students, such as marched this morning, paraded 
the streets of Canton with banners and shouts and songs, 
with all loyalty joining and heartening the President in 
that final effort to secure an adequate endowment the 
success of which has assured the future of St. Lawrence. 
So the spirit of 1886 returned, and history repeated itself; 
but — and this is a habit which history has — it repeated 
itself on a much larger scale. 

"When Doclor Gunnison came to St. Lawrence there 
stood on the campus three real college buildings — for I 
will not count the old wooden gymnasium which you are 
now so eager to replace with something better — the old 
main building, now called Richardson Hall, Herring Li- 
brary, bare of its present extension, and the Fisher Memo- 
rial belonging to the Theological School. First the Cole 
Reading Room was added to the Library, increasing its 
value many times. Then came the Carnegie Science Hall, 
with all its admirable equipment. Do you realize that not 
many years ago all departments were crowded together 
in one unsuitable building? The partitions of three or 
four small rooms, I remember, had been knocked out to 
make a place for chemistry, and all those singular odors 
that emanate from a laboratory penetrated every class- 
room. Not for one day could the present work be carried 
on under the old conditions. Next a United States 
Weather Bureau Station appeared on the edge of the hill; 



29O SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

then the first building of the School of Agriculture; then 
the Dairy Hall; and then — all those minor structures 
that now dot the landscape all the way to Little River. 

" Fifteen years ago — I will not say that you could 
kick a football quite across the campus at a single punt, 
but it would not have needed many repetitions. Now it 
would cost you almost a day's labor to drive a ball around 
the full circuit of the college grounds. And in those days 
there was no athletic field, and all games were played on 
the hard-beaten mud of one little corner of the little old 
campus, close among the college buildings. Now you 
might travel far to find a larger and better athletic field 
than ours — secured for us by Doctor Gunnison's 
efforts. 

"You take pride in your athletics. In 1900 we had 
no athletic record; I do not remember that we had ever 
played against a real college team. And today the main 
student body is about to march upon Hamilton, fired 
with the hope of adding a fifth to a series of already four 
consecutive football victories. It is Doctor Gunnison who 
has made this possible for you. 

"But these are mere incidents of his work. He found 
here a university of two departments, the College of 
Letters and Science and the Theological School; he leaves 
it with four, having added the Brooklyn Law School and 
the State School of Agriculture. Greatest of all, the college 
endowment, utterly inadequate when he entered upon his 
office, amounting to scarcely more than two hundred 
thousand dollars, is now more than half a million — 
almost trebled by the President's strenuous and inde- 
fatigable labors. How difficult and discouraging his task 
often appeared, only he can tell. Hardest of all was the 
crowning achievement, — the heart-breaking fight against 
time for the winning of that final two hundred thousand 
which has ended the sheer penury with which St. Lawrence 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 291 

had struggled for more than fifty years, and at last set 
the college on a firm foundation. 

"I have been asked to speak for the faculty. They 
have done what they could. They have served the college 
with unswerving devotion in fair weather and foul; some 
have even died at their posts. They have done an indis- 
pensable work, not to be forgotten — for without their 
staunch loyalty the life of St. Lawrence might have been 
sapped at the root and all efforts in its behalf made vain. 
But apart from this they claim no credit for the Presi- 
dent's great achievement. His work is peculiarly his own; 
though none can rejoice more heartily in his success 
than do the faculty. 

"And here let me pause to remark, their task is still 
unduly hard. Their number has not increased at an even 
pace with the rest; while the roster of the undergraduates 
has been quadrupled, theirs is barely doubled, — and their 
burden is in no way lightened, though the appliances and 
the reward are now more adequate. 

"Doctor Gunnison, in behalf of the faculty, I salute 
you as the man who has saved the college that they serve 
and love, and placed it on a firm foundation; as the man 
who has enabled them to make their work more effective 
by better equipment in every department of instruction; 
as the man who has made their more adequate remu- 
neration possible, and who has filled their hearts with new 
courage and hope. And I am sure that all — students and 
faculty alike — join me in wishing you many years of 
health and happiness, and the joy of the consciousness of 
a great and worthy work triumphantly accomplished." 

At the close of Professor Gaines' remarks, Mr. Donald 
G. Sherwin, '15, President of the Thelomathesian, spoke 
briefly for the students, in part as follows: 

"No words the students can say would be an ade- 
quate expression of our deep feelings of gratitude and 



292 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

esteem for you, Doctor Gunnison. And so it remains for 
me in a very brief manner to intimate the thought that is 
back of this service. And I would explain first to you its 
purpose. On last Saturday evening you were tendered a 
reception by all your friends, the trustees, alumni, towns- 
people, and students. Because we were only a part on that 
occasion, we could only partly and imperfedlly help you 
to understand our attitude. And it was because the 
expression of this attitude demanded a more personal out- 
let that we students have come here at this service to 
greet you. 

"There should be little of actual sorrow in such a 
parting as ours, we have such a wealth of personal memo- 
ries and such a store of friendly relationships for keep- 
sakes. These incidents will remain with us always, and 
will necessarily recall to our minds the bigger things that 
you, our President, have accomplished. 

"Because I have felt that I could not completely or 
aptly express the sentiments of the students and their 
appreciation, I would use the words of another, who in 
speaking of 'Parting and Forgetting' has this to say — 
'What faithful hand can do these? Our great thoughts, 
our great affections, the truth of our lives, never leave us. 
Surely they cannot separate from our consciousness, and 
they shall follow into whatsoever that consciousness shall 
go.' It is just this thought of lasting gratitude, lasting 
remembrance, and lasting appreciation that we as your 
students wish to leave with you." 

On the evening of the same day, President Emeritus 
Almon Gunnison took final leave of Canton, departing to 
his new home in Brooklyn. All the students and most of 
the townspeople were at the station, and the familiar 
cheers and songs pursued the fleeing train as it bore him 
away from the scene of his labors and triumphs. The 
government of the college was left in the hands of a 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 293 

committee of three, comprising Professor C. K. Gaines, 
as chairman of the faculty, and Professors G. R. Hardie 
and E. L. Hulett. At the ensuing commencement, in 191 5, 
Professor Hulett was appointed Dean of the College of 
Letters and Science, and up to the date of this writing 
has proved remarkably efficient and successful in his 
administration, necessarily discharging most of the duties 
of the presidential office. But the history of the period 
following President Gunnison's resignation lies beyond 
the scope of this volume. 

The many tributes to President Gunnison, some of 
them from very distinguished sources, were subsequently 
gathered together in a memorial booklet edited by Doctor 
I. M. Atwood; and to this the reader is referred for further 
details of this nature. 



294 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 



OUR OWN 

Written by Charles Kelsey Gaines, '76, for the public exercises of the New York 
Lambda Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 1904, and cited and applied by the 
Honorable Ledyard Park Hale at the meeting of the Convocation held in Albany, 
October 25, IQ14, in honor of President Almon Gunnison on the occasion of his 
retirement from active service. 

Not beneath fretted arch and glittering dome, 
In mansions lifted by the spell of gold, 
Are found the hearts that truly love a home; 
But under smoky rafters, warped and old, 
Shut in by walls that scarce shut out the cold, 
Close gathered round a hearth of roughest stone 
The sturdy stock is bred that truly loves its own. 

Not from the fertile loam of genial fields, 
Where summer breezes flutter through the vine, 
Springs the stern loyalty that never yields 
Though peril and privation both combine; 
But where the northern tempest racks the pine, 
Mid rifted rocks, mid blinding alpine snows, 
Out of the stoniest soil the sturdiest patriot grows. 

From pastures bleak and bare, for many a year, 
The Scottish clans flung back the encroaching foe; 
The Swiss esteemed their icy slopes too dear 
To brook intrusion from the plains below, — 
And many a rash invader found them so; 
The rocks of Greece bore Asia's heaviest shock; 
The stones of Bunker Hill are reared upon a rock. 

Rightly we love our own; in all the earth 
Are none that claim my heart in like degree 
With those I reared, and those who gave me birth, 
And her I chose; justly mine own to me 



THE CULMINATING ACHIEVEMENT 295 

Are more than multitudes; there well may be 
Regions more fair than this, but none so dear; 
Here have I set my home; my native land is here. 

And thus we love our college; His our own. 

To us the plain brick walls on yonder hill 

Are more than all the piles of sculptured stone 

For others reared, though wrought with matchless skill. 

We loved it in our happiest days, and still 

We love the very ground whereon it stands, 

And ever at its call throng forth with willing hands. 

Can any man among you build an oak? 
Could you, with money, rear it in a day — 
Fashion its living trunk by hammer-stroke? 
Dead walls you might pile high, of stone or clay; 
The oak mounts heavenward in a slower way. 
In fifty years a sturdy stalk you see; 
After an hundred years — behold the perfect tree I 

Nor think to found a school with sudden gold: 
With lavish gifts you may enrich the soil, 
But if no quickening germ is in the mold, 
Wasted the wealth outpoured, and vain your toil, — 
The worthless seed will all your efforts foil. 
Gold may rear monuments; a school must grow 
Through years of strain, and tears and pain, — for growth 
is slow. 

With such a growth the tree we love has grown, 
Strong-fib ered in the gales wherewith it strives, 
Bending beneath the blast, yet not overthrown. 
Rugged the soil, yet vital: fed by lives, 
And loyalty, the tree of knowledge thrives, — 
While the rude winds that through its branches sing 
Bear the good seed afar, in distant fields to spring. 



296 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

We love our own; and worthy of our pride 

Is that we love; stout hearts, uncracked by fear, 

Lie in its deep foundations; staunch and tried 

Were those that built upon them, year by year — 

Our heroes, potent from the grave, still here, 

The silent sponsors of our proudest boasts; 

Dim-eyed but undismayed, death found them at their posts. 

Grieve not for those who died in such a strife: 

Nations are reared on patriots' tombs; our walls 

Are buttressed by these monuments; no life 

Is spent in vain if spent where duty calls. 

The trophy rises where the warrior falls, 

His blood the price of viclory; by none 

Who hold their lives too dear are highest triumphs won. 

Long live St. Lawrence! Ever from her crown 
Shall stream her pennant's rich autumnal hue, 
While forests flaunt the scarlet and the brown 
In token that the land is loyal too. 
New chiefs may lead her sons to conquests new, 
New bands of students ampler halls may fill — 
But Truth and Loyalty shall be her watchword still. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 

THE GYM FUND — PRESS ASSOCIATION — GOOD GOVERNMENT 

CLUB WOMEN'S FORUM YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN 

ASSOCIATION AL KI COMMONS CLUB GAINES LIT- 
ERARY SOCIETY HONOR SYSTEM AND CODE ALUMNI 

ORGANIZATION. 

SOON after the raising of the two hundred thousand 
dollar endowment fund, President Gunnison began 
to devote his efforts to obtaining a more adequate 
gymnasium. The want of this was keenly felt, and the 
students, realizing the need more fully and more diredlly 
than any others, determined to organize some movement 
by which they might combine their efforts with those of 
President Gunnison, and so do something toward the 
accomplishment of the desired end. The enthusiasm mani- 
fested by the undergraduates in this agitation, and their 
earnest efforts to do something themselves, have resulted 
in a really notable propaganda. Conducted with the ap- 
proval and cooperation of the President, the movement 
rapidly developed into a well-rounded, practical plan, and 
although it has been in progress barely two years it is 
already bearing fruit and may lead to important develop- 
ments. 

The prime mover in this matter was Robert H. Ben- 
jamin, '15. The initial step was taken on the evening of 
March 3, 1914, when the class of 191 5 met at what was 
then the Zeta Phi house for the purpose of considering 
the undertaking, and after due discussion every member 



298 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

of the class pledged one dollar towards the establishment 
of the proposed gymnasium fund. The slogan adopted 
was, "Watch the Gym Fund Grow." At the same meet- 
ing a Junior committee was appointed to push the project. 
Since that time the Gym Fund committees have worked 
zealously, and in the main have been well supported by 
the student body. They have shown infinite ingenuity 
and great persistence, and through such enterprises as 
gym dances, candy sales, and local-talent performances, 
all enlivened by original features, have accumulated well 
over one thousand dollars, kept on deposit with the treas- 
urer of the University to accumulate until an adequate 
sum is secured. The students realize, of course, that 
they cannot build an adequate gymnasium by their own 
unaided efforts, but are working in the hope that their 
initiative and self-helpful enterprise may enlist the interest 
of others, and that a substantial "nest-egg" may ulti- 
mately attract larger contributions. 

PRESS ASSOCIATION 

In the late seventies and early eighties a very con- 
siderable amount of press-work was done by St. Lawrence 
students, though there seems to have been no formal 
organization. The brief story of the "St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity Press," a printing establishment and newspaper 
owned and run by Eugene M. Grant in the earliest seven- 
ties, has already been told. Concerning the subsequent 
history of press-work at St. Lawrence, Herbert F. Gunni- 
son, '8o, in an article published in The Laurentian in 
December, 1910, said in part: "In 1873 there was the 
'University Press/ owned by Nelson L. Robinson, '77, 
and Herbert F. Gunnison, '80, which did some of the 
college printing; and later, Joseph V. Witherbee, '8o, 
succeeded Mr. Robinson. It became a plant of consid- 
erable size, and when the firm of 'Gunnison and Wither- 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 299 

bee' graduated, it was sold to Avery D. Andrews, of 
Massena, who afterwards became General Andrews and 
was a member of the New York Police Commission with 
Theodore Roosevelt. 

"During this period there were several attempts made 
to form a press association, but nothing definite was done. 
Several students became correspondents of the county 
papers, and these papers were kept on file in the college 
reading-room. Those who had an itching for newspaper 
work were only too glad of an opportunity to write for 
the press, knowing that the experience would be of great 
value to them when they sought employment on a met- 
ropolitan daily. Some of the boys were also anxious to 
help the college; these wrote articles that were chiefly 
about the University and helpful in making it better 
known. It was good pioneer work, and benefited the 
students and the college." 

The organization of the first press association at St. 
Lawrence took place early in the year 1882. At this 
time there were a number of men in the college who were 
interested in this activity, and desirous of developing an 
aptitude for journalism. All the members of the associa- 
tion were assigned to papers and carried on a regular 
correspondence. Clippings representing the correspondence 
of each member were pasted in a scrap-book kept in the 
reading-room. This ancient scrap-book, which has been 
preserved to this day and is now in the custody of Pro- 
fessor C. K. Gaines, furnishes an interesting record of 
college events during the limited period covered by its 
entries. 

The interest which organized this first enterprise fell 
away in the later eighties, especially after The Laurentian 
was established, and very little was accomplished. In 
1 89 1, through the medium of The Laurentian, a partial 
revival was effected, but the activity was never supported 



300 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

by a strong organization. From time to time during later 
years men with ability and enthusiasm for this kind ot 
work agitated the matter, but no effective system was 
adopted. 

In the fall of 1910, for the purpose of drawing increased 
attention to the University and thus helping President 
Gunnison in his campaign to increase the college endow- 
ment, Professor G. R. Hardie organized a committee to 
act as the nucleus of a St. Lawrence University Press 
Association. The task of this committee was to make 
arrangements with the various newspapers in Northern 
New York for space, and to furnish a common center 
from which correspondents might obtain news. This action 
tended to revive the old interest, and some very creditable 
work was accomplished during the year. The organiza- 
tion during that first year was conducted in a rather in- 
formal manner, and it was not until the latter part of May 
in 191 1 that a constitution was adopted. At this time the 
members of the association were devoting their energies 
chiefly to the establishment of The Hill News, the first 
number of which was published on May 22. Although, 
then as now, the title indicated that the paper was pub- 
lished by the Press Association, the association has assumed 
hardly more than a nominal supervision of the workings 
of the weekly. 

At the beginning of the following year plans were 
outlined to incorporate the association as a stock company. 
A requisite for membership was to be the ownership of 
one share, valued at ten dollars. This project actually 
resulted in the incorporation of "The Hill News Publish- 
ing Company"; but although each member was supposed 
to buy one share of stock, at five dollars, the provision 
was never strictly enforced, and today the corporation 
exists without stock. 

From 191 2 up to the date of writing, while the Press 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 3OI 

Association has continued active as an organization, it has 
never accomplished very much in the line of its original 
purpose. Many schemes have been inaugurated, but 
without exception they have failed to bring satisfactory 
results. The association has without doubt brought the 
men of the college interested in newspaper work into a 
closer relation, and has afforded them opportunities to 
hear addresses from many prominent journalists, thus 
giving them a broader understanding of newspaper work 
and conditions. But whatever benefits the meetings of 
the association may have brought to its individual mem- 
bers, in the work of carrying on publicity campaigns in 
the newspaper field it has thus far proved a failure. All 
through these years there have been men who have ac- 
complished much in this direction, but they worked for 
themselves with little or no support from the organiza- 
tion. As this book goes to press, the association is 
formulating a new plan for efficient organization with a 
degree of interest which promises better achievement. 

GOOD GOVERNMENT CLUB 

During the fall of 191 1 much interest was awakened 
by an agitation for the formation of a club to be devoted 
to the study of practical politics. The need had been 
felt for some time, and many of the more progressive 
men in college, among whom W. W. Trench, '13, was 
prominent, were eager for the establishment of such an 
organization. The idea of those supporting the movement 
was to establish in the new club an informality of dis- 
cussion which would lead to closer social relations between 
the men in college, besides incidentally giving them the 
benefit of much practice in extemporaneous speaking, with 
opportunities for original work in investigation and for 
gaining a live acquaintance with current questions of 
national interest. 



302 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

In February, 191 2, the decisive step was taken. Up 
to that time the Debating Society, had been the only club 
which had attempted to deal with political problems — 
and this merely in the way of formal debate. The society 
as then organized was wholly inadequate for the purposes 
of this new enterprise, and was therefore merged in a new 
organization which promised to be of more value and gen- 
eral interest. Debating, however, was continued, and to- 
day the Good Government Club controls this activity as 
one of its departments. 

The club thus established now provides the most direct 
practical bond between the undergraduate and the out- 
side world. Its constitution declares its purpose to be 
"the study of public affairs and participation in the 
duties of citizenship." The club holds informal bimonthly 
gatherings at which vital and absorbing present-day prob- 
lems of national, state, and municipal concern are dis- 
cussed. It has been eminently successful in its purpose; 
its membership is large, and it is without doubt the livest 
student organization on the Hill. 

women's forum 

The Women's Forum was organized in 191 2 by a group 
of girls who felt that they wanted a place where they 
could discuss and keep in touch with questions of the 
day. The tendency of students in a small college, situ- 
ated at some distance from a metropolis, is to become 
absorbed in their own little world to the exclusion of 
larger outside interests. The Forum was intended to ob- 
viate this as far as possible. It seems to have come into 
existence in response to a real need, for the interest has 
continued strong. 

The Forum is divided into four committees in such a 
way that every girl must take an active part. There is a 
Committee on Current Events, a Sociological Committee,, 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 303 

a Civics Committee, and a Committee on College Prob- 
lems. Often some outside speaker is secured to lead the 
discussions. The first club director was Mrs. H. P. Forbes, 
since whose resignation Professor Plaisance has been 
acting in that capacity. The presidents during the three 
first years of its existence were Elizabeth Waters, '13, 
Elaine Manley, '14, and Louise Klein, '15. The club 
meets at intervals of three weeks at some one of the girls' 
fraternity houses, and at the date of writing gives every 
promise of continued popularity and usefulness. 

YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION 

In 1909 a chapter of the Young Women's Christian 
Association was installed at St. Lawrence, largely on the 
initiative of Mildred Nasmith, '11. During the early 
years of the organization the girls devoted their efforts 
chiefly to holding regular meetings and sending delegates 
to the annual convention at Silver Bay. More recently, 
however, they have engaged in social work in the town. 
Their Christmas tree for children from the more humble 
homes of the town has become an annual event, looked 
forward to with happy anticipation by many of the little 
folks of Canton. 

The association holds in Fisher Hall weekly meetings 
which are frequently addressed by prominent towns- 
people and occasionally by speakers from other places. 
A characteristic feature of the society is the fact that it 
is the only organization on the Hill in which women of the 
College of Letters and Science and of the School of Domes- 
tic Science meet together. During the summer of 191 5 the 
largest delegation ever sent for such a purpose from St. 
Lawrence attended the conference at Silver Bay. 



304 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

AL KI 

In the closing year of President Gunnison's adminis- 
tration there were at St. Lawrence about fifty non-fra- 
ternity girls; and as representation on the Honor Court 
and other undergraduate governing bodies is by "faction," 
it seemed urgent to organize the non-fraternity people into 
a group which could act as an effective unit. The non- 
fraternity girls, largely on the initiative of Louise Klein, 
'15, therefore drew up a constitution, adopted the name 
"Al Ki," and have been holding regular biweekly meetings. 

A further object of the organization is to provide social 
life for those outside of the fraternities. The only diffi- 
culty has been to secure a suitable place for meetings and 
social affairs. The need of providing some social center, 
where the girls could come together at any time and feel 
at home, has been the subject of much earnest discussion. 
Many of the alumni of the college have realized the im- 
portance of the non-fraternity problem, and have contrib- 
uted for the establishment of such a social center a sum 
amounting, at the date of writing, to about seven hundred 
dollars. 

COMMONS CLUB 

For many years there had been a desire on the part 
of the non-fraternity men of the college to come together 
and form a representative organization, but no definite 
action was taken until the fall of 1914, when they organ- 
ized with seventeen members under the name of the "In- 
dependent Club." Meetings were held on the first and 
third Mondays of every month. On March 29, 191 5, a 
banquet was given in the Blue Bird Tea Room, with 
Professor C. J. Sarle and Assistant Professor C. W. Hal- 
lahan, 'io, as guests. 

The spirit of this organization has been, from the 
beginning, purely democratic. Feeling the need of the 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 305 

fellowship of a national organization of the same char- 
acter, the members made application to the National 
Federation of Commons Clubs late in the fall of 191 5, 
and on February 7 of the following year the local society 
received official announcement of its unanimous election 
as the twelfth chapter. Other colleges and universities 
having chapters are Wesleyan, Union, Tufts, Syracuse, 
Colby, Massachusetts Agricultural, Connecticut Agricul- 
tural, Hobart, New Hampshire State, and West Virginia. 

On the evening of March 3, 1916, the local organiza- 
tion was formally installed as the St. Lawrence Chapter 
of the National Federation of Commons Clubs. Twenty- 
four men were initiated, and Mr. F. B. Van Avery of 
Union College conducted the ceremony. A banquet at 
the Hodskin House followed, at which the president, 
C. J. Cowing, '16, acted as toastmaster, calling for many 
responses, and Professor H. P. Morrell, the guest of honor, 
gave an address on "Democracy." 

The Commons Club is a non-exclusive organization; 
its doors are open to every student of good moral char- 
acter. Its policy is not anti-fraternity, but simply non- 
fraternity. It stands for democracy in college life, — 
working for the college as a whole and not for factional 
or individual ends. In short, it stands for equality and 
fair play. 

GAINES LITERARY SOCIETY 

In the fall of 19 14, largely on the initiative of R. H. 
Benjamin, '15, the Gaines Literary Society was organized 
by a group of students who, according to the constitution 
adopted, were desirous "to stimulate interest in and carry 
on discussions concerning literature. ,, Membership is 
limited to those who have pursued the course in English 
literature for at least one term, and is conferred, on nomi- 
nation by the professor of English literature, by a unani- 
mous vote, "on the basis of general excellence in the 



306 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

course." The charter members were R. H. Benjamin, 
Helen G. Crisler, Louise M. Reynolds, R. B. Eldridge, 
W. B. Scribner, Mary M. Foster, and Louise Klein, all 
belonging to the class of 191 5. Professor C. K. Gaines 
was made chairman and adviser of the society, and Mrs. 
C. K. Gaines was appointed as "hostess," — the duties 
of which position she discharged to the great satisfaction 
of all concerned. The meetings, thus far, have been held 
on the first Tuesday of each month at the home of Pro- 
fessor Gaines, and have consisted chiefly of a series of 
talks or papers on literary topics of interest not included 
in the regular course, followed by general discussion. 
Remarkable interest has been shown, and the meetings 
have been uniformly well attended. On February 9, 
191 5, the society elected to membership G. A. Manley, 
'16, A. J. Cheritree, '15, D. G. Sherwin, '15, and Mabel 
M. Boardman, '16; on March 10, 1916, D. B. Cheetham, 
'16, Barbara Bliss, '16, Mildred Rich, '16, J. A. Church, 
'17, H. S. Sutton, '17, R. P. Taylor, '17, Ruth Atwood, 
'17, Doris Dewey, '17, Adeline Drake, '17, Anna Sheahan, 
'17, and Ida Singlehurst, 'ij. 

THE HONOR SYSTEM 

At St. Lawrence, as in many other colleges, the lack 
of a well-defined and practically effective honor code 
among the students was through many years a serious 
defect, deeply deplored by all who were officially connected 
with the institution and all who loved it. The great major- 
ity of the students, of course, were honest; many, indi- 
vidually, held to the highest standards; but there was no 
such organized and strongly established honor sentiment as 
is needed to restrain those who are insensitive to the dis- 
grace of seeking by dishonest means credit which they 
have not earned. So this callous minority, lacking in the 
fundamental instinct of fair play, continued more or less 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 307 

to defraud their classmates and themselves and to shame 
their Alma Mater. With such as were caught and con- 
victed the faculty dealt rigorously enough; but no sever- 
ity of discipline can really reach the heart of the evil 
or extirpate the abuse, — only a sound and vigorous 
student sentiment can do that. All this is simply the 
paragraph relating to St. Lawrence in a very discreditable 
chapter of American educational history which connects 
closely with a similarly disgraceful passage in America's 
political history. Let no reader assume that there was 
anything unusual or extreme at St. Lawrence. 

At length, quite gradually, the student self-conscious- 
ness in this matter began to awaken. Students of un- 
questionable honor began to chafe at being watched like 
pickpockets during an examination — yet well understood 
the necessity, for a virtual pickpocket might be sitting at 
the other end of the bench. The disposition to shield such 
offenders diminished; it began to be felt that they brought 
disgrace to the whole student body. During the later 
years of President Gunnison's administration, especially 
from 1910 to 1913, the question of an honor code was 
under continual agitation. A peculiarly valuable contri- 
bution to the end in view was a carefully prepared article 
by Ernest L. Robinson, 'n, published in The Laurentian 
for March, 191 1, in which he collated many facts about 
the provisions and workings of the honor system in vari- 
ous other colleges; for this tended to give the movement 
a more definite and practical form. Others prominent and 
helpful in this agitation were Edwin B. Wilson, '12, and 
Harry B. Adsit, '12, — who, however, graduated without 
seeing their hopes fulfilled and with little expectation that 
a decisive reform would be achieved in the near future. 
Others, however, were more confident — and notable 
among these was Harry F. Landon, '13, whose faith in 
the efficiency and fundamental right-mindedness of the 



308 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

student body was unshakable. He was at that time edi- 
tor-in-chief of The Laurentiariy and soon became one of 
the most potent factors in the movement now well under 
way. Other earnest advocates were W. W. Trench, '13, 
R. B. Eldridge, '15 — both Hill News editors — and by 
this time so many more that further enumeration is out 
of the question. Finally, on May 28, 1913, an honor code 
which had previously been carefully formulated by a 
student committee was adopted by the whole student 
body in Thelomathesian assembled. The faculty, now 
convinced that the system had sufficient support in stu- 
dent sentiment to prove effective, promptly gave its 
sanction, and the Honor Code thus established has been 
in force at St. Lawrence ever since. It has successfully 
passed through the first critical stages, and unless the 
moral fibre of the undergraduates should suffer unbelievable 
deterioration its future seems assured. For it has met a 
long-felt want, and emanating as it did from the students 
themselves it commands their full allegiance and has be- 
come a vital part of the St. Lawrence tradition. 

Since its first adoption, the Honor Code has been 
amended in a few details by student action with faculty 
sanction, and its scope somewhat widened by the inter- 
pretations of the Honor Court, composed of students, upon 
whom devolves the duty of its enforcement. The Honor 
Code in its present form reads as follows: 

Article I. — No student shall either give or obtain 
help or use any unfair method during an examination or 
in any class he may attend. 

Article II. — Each student, upon completing an exam- 
ination, shall sign a statement to the effect that he has 
neither given nor obtained help during that examination. 

Article III. — Any student, or group of students, or 
any member of the Faculty, may voluntarily report to the 
Honor Court any violation of this constitution. 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 309 

Article IV. — The Honor Court shall consist of nine 
members, four of whom shall be Seniors, three Juniors, 
and two Sophomores. Four members shall be women. A 
nominating committee, in which all factions shall be rep- 
resented, shall be appointed by the President of Thelo- 
mathesian to make all nominations. The annual elections 
shall be held on the Friday following Moving-up Day, 
the nominating committee to be appointed at least one 
week before the election. 

Article V. — Students found guilty before the Honor 
Court of violating any section or provision of this code 
shall receive no credit in the course in which the offence 
is perpetrated, and in addition shall suffer suspension for 
a length of time to be determined upon by the Honor 
Court, provided it is the first offence. Any student, how- 
ever, who is found guilty of violating this Honor Code a 
second time shall be expelled from college, provided such 
action on the part of the Honor Court is sanctioned by 
the Faculty. 

Article VI. — Any provision of this code may be 
amended by a two-thirds vote of Thelomathesian, pro- 
vided the proposed amendment has been publicly an- 
nounced at least one week before final action is taken. 

Amendment I. — No student, upon completing an ex- 
amination, shall be required to sign a statement to the 
effect that he has neither given nor obtained help during 
that examination. 

Amendment II. — Any student may be summoned be- 
fore the Honor Court as a witness. 

Amendment III. — No professor shall remain in the 
class-room during examinations; alternate seats shall be 
taken whenever possible. 



3IO SIXTY YtARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ALUMNI ORGANIZATION 

One of the most noteworthy characteristics of the 
present stage in the development of the college is the 
increased activity of its alumni. Early in the seventies 
an Alumni Association had been organized, but for many 
years its function was almost limited to arranging for the 
alumni dinner each commencement, a reception and ball, 
and other minor matters. At a later date, beginning in 
the early nineties, various local organizations were formed 
at centers about which a considerable number of gradu- 
ates were domiciled — beginning with New York City, 
followed by Boston, Albany, Chicago, and Buffalo. These 
groups held banquets, annually or at longer intervals, 
often manifesting much enthusiasm and college spirit. 
For a long time, however, there was little result beyond 
the meeting of old friends and the revival of old memories. 
The first really large undertaking by the organized alumni 
was the raising of an endowment for the Gaines Profes- 
sorship, proposed as a memorial of the long and efficient 
service of Doctor Absalom Graves Gaines and a tribute of 
affection on the part of his former students. About twelve 
thousand dollars was finally secured by the alumni, Doctor 
John Murray Atwood being particularly active in this 
work; but the endowment was finally completed through 
the efforts of President Gunnison. 

All the while, however, the loyal spirit of the alumni 
was rising. Individually they had always been staunch 
and helpful to the limit of their ability; but now they 
began to realize that much more might be accomplished 
by organized effort. The commencement gathering of 
191 5 was signalized by a new departure. First the class 
of 1905 held a notable reunion, the prime movers being 
Lawrence J. Sawyer and Cleland R. Austin. This was 
followed by an unusually enthusiastic and well-attended 



LATER STUDENT ACTIVITIES 3II 

meeting of the Alumni Association, at which a provisional 
constitution on a new plan was adopted and a considerable 
reorganization effected. In particular, an Alumni Council 
was formed, with H. W. Forbes, '98, as president, L. J. 
Sawyer, '05, as vice-president, Williston Manley, '88, as 
treasurer, and E. C. Roundy, '14, as secretary. A little 
later the following committees were constituted: 

Executive Committee: H. W. Forbes, '98, chairman, 
L. J. Sawyer, '05, Williston Manley, '88, N. F. Giffin, '95, 
C. R. Austin, '05, C. H. Black, '08. 

Committee on Class Organizations: C. R. Austin, '05, 
chairman, G. D. Walker, '04, R. L. Joyce, '12, W. W. 
Trench, '13, D. G. Sherwin, '15. 

Committee on New Students: N. F. Giffin, '95, chair- 
man, Mrs. A. S. Bedell, '82, H. W. Reed, '99, A. W. 
Lytle, '01, R. G. Vilas, '13. 

Committee on Student Aclivities: C. H. Black, '08, 
chairman, Doctor Lucia E. Heaton, '79, R. S. Waterman, 
'oi, R. M, Gunnison, '09, D. G. Timmerman, '12. 

Throughout the year these committees have been ex- 
ceedingly active, particularly in promoting the organization 
of classes and arranging for reunions. It is noticeable that 
the younger alumni are decidedly taking the lead under 
these new arrangements, while the older graduates are for 
the most part watching the development of their plans 
with interest and sympathy. It is idle to attempt to pre- 
dict the future; it may be that this movement marks the 
beginning of a new era of progress for St. Lawrence, but 
its history must be recorded in another volume and by 
other hands. 



CHAPTER XIX 
DRAMATICS 

EARLY EFFORTS — PINAFORE — THE LATIN PLAYS — DER 

NEFFE ALS ONKEL COLLEGE DRAMATIC CLUB ER- 

MINIE AS YOU LIKE IT THE MERCHANT OF VENICE 

MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM THE MAN ON THE 

BOX SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER DRAMATIC ORGAN- 
IZATION AND LATER PLAYS. 

NATURALLY, the first attempts at dramatic pres- 
entation at St. Lawrence were unambitious and 
rather primitive. Nevertheless the old chapel 
was the scene of some creditable dramatic efforts, such 
as a partial rendering of "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme ,, 
in the French of the original by members of the class of 
'j6, under the inspiration of Professor Lucy G. French 
and the auspices of the Thelomathesian Society. Such 
farces as "The Boston Dip" and "The Greatest Plague 
in Life," given by the Brownings in 1875, mark the usual 
limit of such undertakings in those days. It was not until 
1879 that anything worthy of extended notice was pro- 
duced. In the fall of 1878 Professor W. B. Gunnison, 
75> organized a musical society and began rehearsals for 
"Pinafore," the light opera by Gilbert and Sullivan which 
was then taking the country by storm. The cast was 
not made up entirely from the student body; it was, 
however, so largely composed of students and others 
directly connected with the University, and Professor 
Gunnison was so completely the animating spirit, that 
this rather ambitious undertaking may well be regarded 
as the first really notable dramatic achievement. Among 



DRAMATICS 313 

the chief performers were Mrs. Emma Moxley Squires, 
wife of Professor A. Z. Squires, Florence J. Lee, '82 (now 
Mrs. E. A. Whitman), daughter of Doctor J. S. Lee, 
Mrs. Robert Stocking, a former student, J. C. Lee, '76, 
Isaac P. Coddington, '79, possessor of a wonderful tenor 
voice, and Gilbert F. Barnes, '8o, whose "Dick Dead- 
eye" is still remembered with pleasure. Professor Gun* 
nison himself, with his rich baritone voice and command- 
ing figure, made an ideal Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. The 
choruses were largely made up of college girls and boys; 
the list would contain many well-known names, but is 
too long to be recorded here. This opera was presented 
in Miner Hall in the early spring of 1879, and the stand- 
ard then set has never been quite reached since by any 
similar amateur performance in this region. The nearest 
approach was the production of "Erminie," given under 
the direction of Wilson T. Moog, ex-'c^, June 21, 1902, in 
which Edson Miles, 'oo, and Lawrence Russell, son of 
Leslie Wead Russell, trustee and former head of the Law 
School, did remarkably good work. Marguerite Liotard, 
'98, sang the title role, and Genevieve Lynch, '95, and 
Alice Mills, 'oo, took the other leading women's parts. 

The next notable event in the dramatic history of the 
University was also due to the initiative of Professor Gun- 
nison. Under his skilful and enthusiastic guidance, on 
February 18, 1882, the Junior class had the distinction of 
presenting, in their own translation, the first Latin play 
ever given in this country so far as is known. Just pre- 
viously, however, to this production at St. Lawrence, 
Harvard University had brought out the "Oedipus Tyran- 
nus" of Sophocles in the original Greek. This coincidence 
is highly creditable to the smaller institution, as was the 
performance itself, — though of course it is not to be 
compared in value and quality with the great revival of 
the classical drama at Harvard in 1881. 



314 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The cast of characters was as follows: 

Ergasilus, a parasite George S. Conkey 

Hegio, an old man Frank T. Post 

Philocrates, an Elean nobleman D. L. Fisher 

Tyndarus, slave of Philocrates. . . .James E. Church 

Aristophontes, an Elean H. B. Chandler 

Philopolemus, son of Hegio R. E. Sykes 

Stalagmus, runaway slave H. B. Chandler 

W. L. Caten 
Other slaves F. A. Sweet 

R. E. Sykes 

The program was folded once, making four pages 
about seven by ten inches in size. The inside pages con- 
tained two broad columns of reading matter giving the 
plot of the play, explanations of Roman costume, and 
other illuminating information sufficient to make the 
audience familiar with unusual features. This is the 
printed record; but it gives no conception of the energy 
and zeal put into the undertaking — the difficulties con- 
quered, the ingenuity and originality exhibited — nor of 
the triumphant conclusion. The boys made their own 
costumes. Each procured his own "oblong piece of cloth 
as it came from the loom" from the store of "A. A. 
Simmons and Son," and decorated it after what classical 
pattern he deemed most fit. George S. Conkey, '83, 
whose father was the leading Canton druggist and also 
sold paints and stains, having free access to the mate- 
rials spread his "himation" on the floor and stenciled it 
with such careless liberality that, when he picked it up, 
he found that the oozing paint had printed a permanent 
pattern on the wood-work — a classical decoration not 
approved of by his parents. But despite difficulties the 
play was an unqualified success and received wide notice 
and commendation, even in the metropolitan press. 

For nine years following the presentation of the "Cap- 
tivi" there is no record of any distinctive work done in 



DRAMATICS 315 

dramatics. In 1891, however, at the instigation of Henry 
Butterfield Taylor, then a Freshman but already a capable 
actor, the comedy "Lend Me Five Shillings" was pre- 
sented in the Town Hall on Friday evening, March 6. 
The acting was unequal, but Taylor as "Mr. Golightly, ,, 
and E. B. Lent, '92, as the irate and suspicious husband, 
were quite sufficient to delight the audience and insure 
success. The actors called themselves the "College Dra- 
matic Club," and this was the first step toward what has 
since become a well-organized branch of the student 
activities. On November 7 of the same year the club 
held a banquet at the home of Miss Charlotte Kimball, 
'92, at which the most notable feature was "The Book of 
the Feed." These menus were each decorated with a pen 
and ink drawing from the hand of Nelson L. Robinson, 
'yj, pictures of the cast, and hand-printed illuminated 
lettering by Professor Clement M. Baker, '85. They 
were really works of art. But nothing further is heard 
of the College Dramatic Club as an organization. The 
membership was as follows: Charlotte Kimball, '92, 
Grace P. Lynde, '93, Amy McVey, '94, May Green, '94, 
Lorenzo D. Case, '95, Henry B. Taylor, ex- ? 95, George I. 
Woolley, '94, E. B. Lent, '92, J. Frank McKinney, '93, 
and Mrs. C. K. Gaines, '78, as chaperon and adviser. 

In the following year two members of the club, George 
I. Woolley and James F. McKinney, made a translation 
of Schiller's famous comedy "Der NefFe als Onkel," which 
was produced in the Town Hall on May 13, 1892. This 
was the first really notable work in dramatics since the 
presentation of the "Captivi" ten years before, and the 
comments of the press gave it the distinction of being a 
worthy successor of that play. The costumes were made 
and the cast carefully trained under the direction of 
Mrs. C. K. Gaines, who had made a thorough study of 
the period represented. The result was a presentation 



3l6 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

historically and artistically correct and beautiful. The 
serious literary work, the knowledge of the manners and 
customs of France of a hundred years before, and the 
successful creation of the characters, lifted this perfor- 
mance decidedly above the level of ordinary dramatics. 
One of the gowns worn was an actual survival of the period, 
— an heirloom kindly loaned by Mrs. Liotard, wife of 
Professor Henri Liotard, a native of Geneva, Switzerland. 

During these years it seems to have been character- 
istic of the students under some special stimulus to do 
something of unusual merit in the way of dramatic pro- 
duction, and then to lapse into inaction until some lead- 
ing spirit again "moved the waters" to accomplish another 
tour de force. As nothing notable was done in the ten 
years between the "Captivi" and "Der Neffe als Onkel," 
so during the next five years nothing worthy of record 
was accomplished. Then came the justification of so long 
a wait in the really splendid production of the "Mos- 
tellaria" of Plautus. This was given in the original 
Latin during commencement week, 1897, under the 
direction of Professor George Robert Hardie, head of the 
Latin department, assisted by Henry E. Seaver, a grad- 
uate of Harvard and a former professor of Latin in St. 
Lawrence. 

As the "Captivi" just fell short of being the first 
classical play given in this country, so the "Mostellaria" 
barely missed being the first play given in America in 
the original Latin. In each case the anticipation was due 
to Harvard; and the presentation of the "Phormio" at 
that university preceded the production of the "Mostel- 
laria" at St. Lawrence only by a few days. Professor 
Hardie, with characteristic enterprise, went to see it, and 
brought back the music for the interludes which Professor 
F. D. Allen of Harvard had composed for the "Phormio." 
In retrospect the work done in producing the "Mostel- 



DRAMATICS 317 

laria" seems unbelievable. It was decided that each 
purchaser of a ticket should be given a translation of the 
play, that he might be enabled to follow the action in 
spite of the unknown tongue; but as no satisfactory up- 
to-date translation could be found, it became necessary 
to make one. The time was short, but with that St. 
Lawrence brand of courage which no difficulty daunts, 
Professor Hardie, assisted by Mrs. C. K. Gaines, under- 
took the task. They were literally obliged to use every 
spare moment, day and night, to accomplish the work in 
time; many and intense were the hours spent in hurried 
toil while the printer's devil sat on the very doorstep 
gnashing his teeth for copy. It was done at last; and 
notwithstanding the haste in its execution the work was 
so good, especially in the idiomatic renderings, that it 
has since been in such demand for similar purposes that 
the translators have been unable to supply the copies 
asked for and a new edition is really needed. A Latin 
advertisement was prepared in imitation of those ancient 
announcements which may still be seen scrawled in red 
chalk on walls in Pompeii. Stanley E. Gunnison, '99, 
made the matrix, carving the letters in true Roman style 
on a large block of wood, from which the poster was 
printed in red ink on gray paper. The following is a re- 
duced reproduction: 

ADAtMAE -MATMA-QIMAM A 

PlAVTI-AAOmH-ARJAAA 

ACtTCKEXiAVKENTIAAW 

INTHKATWKANTOWIA/VO 

PKIMO-DIMVDOKVM-HEIIIim-IVI, 



3l8 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The scene, representing a street in Athens with houses 
in the background, was painted by H. D. Kip, of Canton, 
an artist whose remarkable skill and fidelity to nature 
have never received adequate recognition; the altar and 
the tibiae were also made in Canton; the mouth-pieces 
for the tibia-players — in short, all the properties — were 
constructed under the immediate direction of Professor 
Hardie. The music used was composed by Florence J. 
Lee, '82 (Mrs. E. A. Whitman), and compared worthily 
with the interludes of Professor Allen. Following the 
custom of the Roman theatre, the orchestra was reserved 
for the "Senators," the fourteen rows back were reserved 
for the "Knights," while the "ultima cavea" was rep- 
resented by the gallery. Any one could be a "Senator" 
or a "Knight" by paying the proper price. Three differ- 
ent kinds of tickets were printed, each thoughtfully inform- 
ing the holder that "Die XXVIII Ivnii agetvr Plavti 

MOSTELLARIA HORA POST MERIDIEM VIII SPECTATVM 
ADMITTATVR QVISQVIS HANC TESSERAM EXHIBVERIT." On 

the stub was indicated the proper seat, as "XIII Ordi- 
nvm" or "Svmmae Caveae," with the proper letter and 
number. 

The cast was as follows: 

Tranio, slave of Theopropides Harry W. Forbes 

Grumio, country slave George F. Wilder 

Philolaches, a young Athenian George E. Cooley 

Philematium, a music girl Jessie D. Stearns 

Scapha, waiting woman to Philematium 

Helen A. Clemence 

Callidamates Edson Miles 

Delphium, sweetheart of Callidamates Alice C Atwood 

Sphaerio, cup-bearer Lucius Sherman 

Theopropides, father of Philolaches Arthur F. Griffiths 

Misargyrides, a money-lender Arthur H. Joy 

Simo, neighbor of Theopropides Henry E. Seaver 










< 



DRAMATICS 319 

Phaniscus, slave of Callidamates Ernest Robinson 

Advorsitor, another slave Stanley E. Gunnison 

Pedisequi (Albert J. Fields 

( Charles H. Herrick 

Tibia players \ RoGER H - Dennett 

( Clarence H. Gaines 

The presentation was a complete success. From the 
rising of the curtain upon the correct and beautiful scene 
to the "Vos plausum date," the stage presented an artistic, 
classic, living picture, and the actors rendered their lines 
with a naturalness and vivacity which made the Latin 
seem their mother tongue. Thanks to the care taken to 
provide a clue to the meaning, and the careful drill in 
delivery due to Mr. Seaver, which gave to the acting 
almost the informing emphasis of a pantomime, the audi- 
ence were in the highest degree appreciative and enthu- 
siastic. They caught all the jokes, laughed and applauded 
at the proper times, and thoroughly enjoyed it all. If 
any came in a spirit of patient endurance to see a Latin 
play, their mood soon changed to delight and satisfaction. 
When the play was over they still kept their seats, and 
with prolonged applause and many cries, among which 
the ancient "Bene" and "Euge" might be distinguished, 
they called all the actors, and finally Professor Hardie 
himself, before the curtain. The Laurentian of June, 
1897, gives an excellent and a detailed account of the work 
of each performer, with pictures illustrating the play. 

After this remarkable production comes another char- 
acteristic period of inaction; for about seven years there 
is nothing of serious worth to record. Tree Holiday exer- 
cises had begun to take on a more or less dramatic form, 
but soon deteriorated into mere personal skits and take- 
ofFs. In such efforts, with an occasional minstrel show, 
the dramatic ability of the students was dissipated, to 
the exclusion of any really worthy undertaking. Occa- 



320 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

sionally, however, some cleverness was shown. In Decem- 
ber, 1902, and in April, 1904, minstrel shows were given 
to crowded houses; and in May, 1904, on Tree Holiday, 
"The Lizzard of the Smile" by the Sophomores and 
"The House Party" and "The Trial" by the Freshmen 
elicited praise as more than usually original performances. 
All this, however, though involving considerable ingenuity 
and some clever acting, was essentially ephemeral and of 
purely local interest. In November, 1902, a "Dramatic 
Society" was organized, but there is no record of any 
play produced under its auspices. 

Finally, on June II, 1904, seven years after the triumph 
of "Mostellaria," dramatics again rose to the height of a 
noteworthy achievement in the production of "As You 
Like It" by the girls of the Zeta Phi society. This college 
group numbered less than thirty members, and for so 
small a body to undertake so large a venture was a re- 
markable exhibition in itself. Every girl had a part in 
the play, besides doing duty as stage manager or press 
agent or costumer or "property man," or performing some 
other share of the drudgery incident to such an under- 
taking. It was a most presumptuous venture — but the 
result triumphantly justified its promoters. The surpris- 
ingly successful presentation of this Shaksperian comedy 
marks another climax in St^ Lawrence dramatics, ranking 
with "Captivi," "Der Neffe als Onkel," and "Mostellaria." 

Elsa Kimball, '07, as "Rosalind," was described in 
the reports as "a joy throughout the whole performance"; 
Gertrude Sneller, '06, as "Celia," was commended for her 
perfect utterance and her dainty grace; Martha Hehr, 
'07, as "Orlando," for her fine presence and wonderful, 
magnetic voice. Sarah Stebbins, '06, as "Touchstone," 
was perhaps the most skillful adlor, and her interpreta- 
tion of the character showed a fine reticence in expressing, 
yet not over-emphasizing, the humorous element. Ruth 



DRAMATICS 321 

Kimball, '08, as " Amiens," found apt occasion for her 
lovely voice in the songs, "Under the Greenwood Tree" 
and "Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind," which she sang 
charmingly. Elizabeth Kimball, ex-'o^, arranged the music 
for the play, and the cast was thoroughly drilled by Mrs. 
Stebbins and Mr. Wriley Beard, to both of whom great 
credit for the success achieved is due. 

The attacks of undergraduate minstrelsy seem to have 
been periodic, and in the following spring the students 
were again seized. On April 14, 1905, a successful per- 
formance was given in the Town Hall under the man- 
agement of Messrs. J. W. Hannon, '05, C. H. Black, '08, 
F. D. Dodge, '06, and J. C. Martin, ex-'o8, the chief 
features being the songs of O. F. Conkey, '08, and T. H. 
Saunders, T.S. 'io. 

Meanwhile the members of Zeta Phi were steadily and 
seriously working on "The Merchant of Venice" with a 
view to its production during commencement week. The 
undertaking of "As You Like It" might have been attrib- 
uted to the valor of ignorance, but this second play was 
taken up with full appreciation of all the difficulties in- 
volved. The result of their efforts was not only an honor 
to the society but a credit to the college. The cast was 
largely made up of those who had played in "As You 
Like It" the year before. To Elsa Kimball was assigned 
the part of "Portia," and Miss Sneller was again, as 
"Nerissa," the dainty and vivacious companion; Miss 
Stebbins took the part of "Shylock," and Miss Hehr 
made a gallant "Bassanio." Contemporary reports em- 
phasize the naturalness and charm of Miss Kimball and 
Miss Sneller, and the dignity, sincerity, and sympathetic 
voice of Miss Hehr. Doubtless the most powerful presen- 
tation was by Miss Stebbins, and much emphasis is laid 
on the double appeal to the audience which she was able 
to make by representing the character as Shakespeare 



322 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

intended it — both as the revengeful, crafty Jew and as 
a pathetic, badgered old man. The actors all did highly 
creditable work, and the performance as a whole was 
artistic and finished — quite out of the class of ordinary 
amateur work. 

Between this and the next performance of note lie 
three comparatively barren years. In the spring of 1908, 
however, the usual prelude of something more important 
appeared — not in this instance as a minstrel show, but 
in the form of German and French playlets given in 
Miner Hall. These call only for passing mention, their 
chief merit being that they were rendered in the original 
under the training of Professor Mary Freeman. Chansons 
sung by Ruth Kimball, '08, and German student songs 
by the cast added color. 

Meanwhile, under the supervision of Mr. Wriley N. 
Beard, the Junior Class was preparing to present "The 
American Citizen" on the Saturday evening preceding 
commencement week. The local reports declare that 
nothing like it had been attempted "since the admirable 
rendering of 'The Merchant of Venice' by the Zeta Phi 
girls." It was in this play that Marion E. Harlan, '09, 
Thomas H. Saunders, T.S. 'io, and Robert G. Calder, 'io, 
established the reputation for acting which was so emi- 
nently justified in subsequent performances. Mr. Beard 
had spared no pains in training the cast, and it was largely 
due to his skill that the play was so successfully rendered. 
In appreciation of this service the players presented him 
a gold-headed cane at a supper held after the final pro- 
duction, June 11, 1908. 

The success of this play led to the revival and com- 
plete reorganization of the "Dramatic Club." The first 
play given under the new auspices, "The Man on the 
Box," achieved a degree of success never quite reached in 
any subsequent performance. Prior to its presentation in 



DRAMATICS 323 

Canton the play had been given in several adjoining towns, 
and its fame had gone abroad; so that when the curtain 
rose on Saturday evening, June 5, 1909, an audience 
which packed the house beyond its proper seating capac- 
ity greeted the players with warm applause. For the 
first time in the history of St. Lawrence dramatics it 
became necessary to give two successive local performances 
in order to satisfy those who had not been able to procure 
seats for the first presentation; and the audience at the 
second performance, on Monday afternoon, June 7, was 
scarcely less than at the first. Mrs. Helen Probst Abbott, 
'oi — the only member of the cast not an undergraduate 
— as "Betty Annesly," and Mr. Harlan as "The Man on 
the Box," carried the audience by storm; their work was 
professional in quality, and they were ably sustained by 
the other members of the cast. Undoubtedly the remark- 
able success of this effort was in great part due to Mr. 
Beard, who had so ably and assiduously drilled the cast. 

In the spring of 1910 the underclassmen were again 
seized with an attack of minstrelsy, somewhat delayed 
and proportionately severe. On Friday evening, May 21, 
they gave an entertainment at which Jacob Deuel inaugu- 
rated his reputation as a clever actor, carrying off the 
honors as interlocutor and as the star in the playlet, "The 
Man from Brandon." 

The commencement play selected for 1910 was "The 
Henrietta." The precedent of giving two performances 
had been established by the success of "The Man on the 
Box." "The Henrietta" was given both on Saturday 
evening and on the following Monday evening, and 
crowded houses greeted the players on each occasion. 
It was in this play that Elizabeth Waters, '13, who was 
chosen for a leading role in every subsequent play during 
her college course, made her first appearance. Anna 
Rosenzweig, '12, as the "Widow" did a remarkably fine 



324 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

piece of work. Harold 0. Skinner, '12, and Thomas H. 
Saunders, 'io, were also especially commended, — the latter, 
as "Bertie" quite winning the audience. After the receipts 
were in and all bills paid the club had more than five hun- 
dred and sixty dollars left in its treasury, and it was 
voted to set aside five hundred dollars as a "Dramatic 
Organization Fund." 

This organization was now no longer an experiment; 
it had become established as a recognized part of college 
activities. This the faculty had formally recognized by 
appointing an official adviser, and from 1910 to 191 5 
Professor F. C. Foster served in this capacity. Harold 
O. Skinner, '12, was chosen president; Harry B. Adsit, 
'12, became business manager, with Roy Vilas, '13, as 
assistant; and Maude Martin, 'n, was added to the com- 
mittee. Mr. Beard now found it impossible to devote the 
necessary time to drilling the cast, and the club was 
obliged to forego his exceptionally efficient aid. Professor 
Foster, assisted by Mrs. Carrie Jackson Sawyer, '82, 
assumed the laborious task of training the players; while 
the club, anxious to retain Mr. Beard in some capacity, 
elected him treasurer. "She Stoops to Conquer" was the 
play presented at commencement in 191 1. Two perform- 
ances on successive evenings were well received by large 
audiences. The acting was well balanced. Jacob Deuel, 
ex-' 13, as "Tony Lumpkin," made a hit in the tavern scene 
with his clever singing; Robert L. Joyce, '12, as "Young 
Marlowe," and Harold O. Skinner, '12, as "Hardcastle," 
sustained their parts with credit; and the acting of the 
women — Maude Martin, 'ii, as "Miss Hardcastle," 
Elizabeth Waters, '13, as "Miss Neville," and Ellen Dewey, 
'n, as "Mrs. Hardcastle" — was especially satisfactory. 
Still, the performance as a whole was not quite up to the 
standard set by previous plays. The actors showed a lack 
of sympathetic appreciation of the temper of the times, 



DRAMATICS 325 

and were unable to throw themselves fully into the spirit 
of it. Except in the case of Deuel, the presentation was 
not sufficiently convincing. 

In October, 191 1, the Dramatic Committee consisted 
of Professor Foster, W. N. Beard, Mrs. Sawyer, and two 
undergraduates, Elizabeth Waters and Harold O. Skinner. 
At the first meeting it was voted, with characteristic 
loyalty, to subscribe two hundred and fifty dollars to the 
endowment fund for which President Gunnison was 
so earnestly working; and early in 191 2, "Mice and Men" 
was selected for the next commencement play. 

Meanwhile the girls of Zeta Phi were working on "A 
Midsummer Night's Dream," to be given on the campus 
some time in May. The precise date chosen was May 21, 
but rains almost continuous for more than a week quite 
frustrated their plans, so that the play was finally pre- 
sented on June 1. The spot selected was on the slope of 
the hill a little below Fisher Memorial Hall. The stage 
bounds were indicated by evergreen walls, and the electric 
lighting was artfully and rather elaborately arranged with 
the willing help of some of the boys of the physics de- 
partment. Despite the wearisome delays unavoidable in 
an open air performance in this climate, and the nervous 
strain due to repeated preparation and postponement, 
the performance proved not only a novelty but a remark- 
able success. Although it was the first out-of-doors play 
ever given in this region, it bore few traces of the experi- 
mental or the amateurish. The cast had, indeed, enjoyed 
exceptional advantages in preparation, having been drilled 
by Miss Ida Greeley-Smith, granddaughter of Horace 
Greeley, herself an actress, ably assisted by Mrs. Henry 
P. Forbes. The prompt-book of Wagenhal and Hemper, 
used in the production of the play when Annie Russell 
appeared as "Puck," was procured through the efforts of 
Mildred Seitz, '12, and this also was a great help. 



326 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The orchestra, trained and directed by Chloe Emma 
Stearns, ex-'o2 (now Mrs. C. H. Gaines), herself a member 
of the society, played the Mendelssohn music beautifully, 
and when the first lovely strains floated through the quiet 
woodland scene the effect was of enchantment. Phyllis 
Forbes, '12, as "Puck," and Marian Race, '14, as "Bot- 
tom," did superior work, and Helen Crisler, '15, as 
"Helena," was a manifest favorite with the audience. 
Every character, indeed, was well taken, and the whole 
presentation such a success that all, those who had wit- 
nessed it and those who had not, clamored for a repetition; 
but commencement was close at hand, and it was deemed 
unwise to attempt it. 

The subsequent record of dramatics at St. Lawrence 
shows an uninterrupted series of creditable performances, 
but presents no unusual features. A play has been pro- 
duced during commencement week each year, and this 
has become an accepted, and a highly acceptable, feature 
of the program. In 191 2, the play presented was "Mice 
and Men"; in 1913, "Christopher Junior"; in 1914, 
"Esmeralda"; in 191 5, "All-of-a-sudden Peggy." And a 
long series of really gifted actors — such as Edson Miles, 
'oo, Sarah Stebbins, '06, Elsa Kimball, '07, Marion Harlan, 
'09, Thomas Saunders, T.S. 'io, Harold Skinner, '12, 
Robert Joyce, '12, Elizabeth Waters, '13, Jacob Deuel, ex- 
'13, Anna Rosensweig, '13, Herbert Hutchins, '15, Donald 
Sherwin, '15, Malcolm Black, '16, Mildred Pellens, '17, 
and others too many to enumerate — have established at 
St. Lawrence so high a standard of excellence in acting 
that the annual play presented by the undergraduates is 
always looked forward to as one of the most enjoyable 
attractions of commencement week. 



CHAPTER XX 
ATHLETICS 

THE ATHLETICA FIELD DAY RUGBY — FACULTY BELT — 

LEWIS MEDAL — RICH MEDAL FITZGIBBONS AND CHURCH 

BASEBALL FOOTBALL PROFESSOR FORD AND ATH- 
LETIC COUNCIL TRIANGULAR MEET ATHLETIC FIELD 

ATHLETIC FUND HAMMOND CUP BASKETBALL. 

ON March 25, 1872, the Athletic Association was 
organized and called "The Athletica." The 
treasurer's records show that on that day W. B. 
Gunnison, G. Forbes, E. J. Chaffee, H. P. Forbes, H. E. 
Whitney, Marshall Doolittle, Lelon Doolittle, Albertus 
Smith, Foster Backus, C. K. Gaines, L. A. Lee, H. W. 
Sheldon, F. W. Spicer, and W. W. Hooper each paid the 
sum of fifty cents as an initiation fee into this association. 
On April 25, C. L. Simmons, C. F. Ainsworth, E. W. 
Preble, R. Williams, O. A. Rounds, J. C. Willson, R. A. 
Greene, W. P. Burnell, A. Titus, Jr., and E. S. Corbin 
became members; on June 27, Daniel Bulkeley; on Octo- 
ber 1, F. D. McClusky and H. A. Merrell. On April 9, 
1873, W. M. Kimmell, E. W. Pierce, J. C. Lee, and John 
Hilton were enrolled; on May 13, J. E. Cheetham, F. N. 
Cleaveland, J. S. White, J. M. Payson, S. J. Merrell, and 
G. F. Babbitt; on May 27, E. H. Bugbee; on June 10, 
F. H. Peck; on June 13, C. J. Sawyer. The prime mover 
in this organization was W. B. Gunnison. The original 
constitution of the association was drafted by C. K. 
Gaines. H. A. Merrell was the first treasurer. 

This was the first systematic attempt at the organiza- 
tion of athletics at St. Lawrence. Prior to 1876, however, 



328 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

little interest in athletics was shown. The number of 
students was small, the distance from other colleges great, 
and the athletic spirit had not yet taken hold of the 
college. The Athletica was kept up, however, and 
baseball, and even football, were played to some extent. 
The report of the Tree Holiday of April 30, 1875, contains 
this statement: "The game of football set down for two 
o'clock was necessarily given up. Sides were chosen for 
baseball and a few innings played, but nearly every one 
preferred to be indoors." On June 5 of the same year, a 
game of baseball was played between Athletica and Fresh- 
man nines, resulting in favor of the Athletica by a score 
of seventeen to two. 

The first annual Field Day was held on Saturday, 
June 3, 1876. The affair was organized largely through 
the efforts of John Clarence Lee of the class of '76. He 
raised the money and purchased the prizes, made out the 
program of events, and had general supervision of the 
exercises. It was an all-day affair, and ended with a game 
of football. This occasion marked the real beginning of 
effective athletic organization among the students. 

On the Field Day of 1878 the class prize was first 
offered. It was a glass vase mounted on a silver standard, 
and was awarded to the class winning the largest number 
of points at the meet. It did not become the property of 
the class, but was kept in Herring Library and awarded 
from year to year. This prize disappeared sometime be- 
tween 1890 and 1895, and its whereabouts is not now 
known; but in 1898 the young women of the college gave 
a gold medal as a class prize. Each year the name of the 
winning class is added to the medal. Thus far the win- 
ning classes are: 1898, class of '98; 1899, class of 'oo; 
1900, class of '02; 1901, class of '04; 1902, class of '04; 
1903, class of '04; 1904, class of '07; 1905, class of '07; 
1906, class of '08; 1907, class of '07; 1908, class of 'n; 



ATHLETICS 329 

1909, class of *n; 1910, class of '12; 191 1, class of '12; 
1912, class of '12; 1913, class of '14; 1914, class of '15; 
1915, class of '15. 

In the fall of 1878 the Rugby game of football was 
introduced. John Clarence Lee of the class of '76 had 
been graduated from Harvard in June of that year, and 
had returned to St. Lawrence for his theological course. 
He had seen the Rugby game played at Harvard; it was 
then the college game. He got the rules from Tufts 
College, had them reprinted in a leaflet, and taught the 
game to two elevens. This was the beginning of modern 
football at St. Lawrence; but there was little to keep it 
alive. The students simply organized two elevens and 
played the game among themselves. There was no oppor- 
tunity for competition with other teams, and in a short 
time the game was given up. The last seen of the original 
football was when it was being kicked about the halls of 
the old college building by members of the classes of the 
early eighties, and tradition alleges that it was forthwith 
gathered in by the faculty. Anyhow, it suddenly vanished, 
and with it the first efforts at college football. 

A copy of the football rules printed in 1878 is in the 
possession of the writer, and so far as he knows it is the 
only copy in existence. It is a four-page leaflet, contain- 
ing thirty-one rules and fourteen definitions. The title- 
page runs: 

FOOT BALL RULES 

OF THE 

ATHLETICA ASSOCIATION 
Of St. Lawrence University. 

Plan of Ground. 

On the second and third pages are the rules, and on 
the fourth page the definitions. 



330 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The Field Day of 1879 was made remarkable by the 
offering of three prizes of value and of permanent interest. 
These were the Faculty Belt, the Lewis Medal, and the 
Rich Medal. The Faculty Belt is silver-mounted, and 
was awarded to the student winning the greatest number 
of first places in the running events, — which were, at 
that time, the one hundred yard dash, one-fourth mile 
run, one-half mile run, and one mile run. The money 
with which the prize was purchased was given by the 
faculty, and was raised through the efforts of Professor 
Walter B. Gunnison. This prize has been awarded as 
follows: 1879, to W. L. Fitzgibbons, '82; 1880, to J. V. 
Witherbee, '8o; 1881, to W. L. Fitzgibbons, '82; 1882, 
to J. E. Church, '83; 1883, to E. M. Haley, '85; 1884, 
no record; 1885, to C. S. Gifiin, '86; 1886, to Everett 
Caldwell, '89; 1887, to Everett Caldwell, '89; 1888, to 
Everett Caldwell, '89; 1889, to Charles Legal, T.S. '91; 
1890, to Charles Legal, T.S. '91; 1891, to E. A. Thornton, 
'91; 1892, to H. C. Spurr, '94; 1893, t0 H. C. Spurr, '94; 
1894, to L. A. Johnson, '96; 1895, t0 L. A. Johnson, '96; 
1896, to R. S. Terry, '98; 1 897, to R. S. Terry, '98; 1898, 
to L. R. Smith, 'oo; 1899, to L. R. Smith, '00; 1900, to 
B. M. Duncan, '02; 1901, to B. M. Duncan, '02; 1902, 
to H. F. Corwin, '05; 1903, to R. E. Briggs, '05; 1904, 
to G. E. Van Delinder, '07; 1905, to G. E. Van Delinder, 
'07; 1906, to G. E. Van Delinder, '07; 1907, not awarded; 
1908, to C. H. Black, '08; 1909, not awarded; 1910, to 
F. F. Williams, '12; 191 1, to F. F. Williams, '12; 191 2, 
F. F. Williams, '12, and G. W. Dodds, '12; 1913, D. W. 
Beaman, '15; 1914, D. W. Beaman, '15, and H. I. Slocum, 
'15; 1915, D. W. Beaman, '15, and R. W. Crayton, '18. 

The Lewis Medal was the gift of Mr. Isaac Lewis of 
Meriden, Connecticut, and was secured through the efforts 
of Alfred John Aubrey, T.S. '8o. It is a large silver medal 
awarded each year to the winner of the one hundred yard 



ATHLETICS 33 1 

dash. The list of winners follows: 1879, W. L. Fitzgib- 
bons, '82, time, iof; 1880, J. V. Witherbee, '80, time, 
iof; 1881, W. L. Fitzgibbons, '82, time 10; 1882, J. E. 
Church, '83, time nj; 1883, E. M. Haley, '85, time 13; 
1884, no record; 1885, C. S. Giffin, '86, time n|; 1886, 
Everett Caldwell, '89, time 10 J; 1887, Everett Caldwell, 
'89, time 1 if ; 1888, Everett Caldwell, '89, time nf ; 1889, 
Charles Legal, T.S. '91, time iof; 1890, Charles Legal, 
T.S. '91, time 11; 1891, H. Clifford Spurr, '94, time 1 if; 
1892, H. Clifford Spurr, '94, time 11 J; 1893, H. Clifford 
Spurr, '94, time iof; 1894, L. A. Johnson, '96, time nf; 
1895, R- S. Terry, '98, time 11; 1896, R. S. Terry, '98, 
ioj; 1897, R. S. Terry, '98, time 10 J; 1898, R. S. Terry, 
'98, time 11; 1899, Ellsworth Poste, '02, time 11; 1900, 
B. M. Duncan, '02, time 11; 1901, B. M. Duncan, '02, 
time iof; 1902, J. E. Crossman, '04, time 11; 1903, R. 
E. Briggs, '05, time iof; 1904, G. E. Van Delinder, '07, 
time io|; 1905, G. E. Van Delinder, '07, time iof; 1906, 
G. E. Van Delinder, '07, time 10^; 1907, Clifford L. Miller, 
T.S. 'io, time iof; 1908, Titus Sheard, '08, time iof; 
1909, F. Fay Williams, '12, time nf; 1910, F. Fay Wil- 
liams, '12, time iof; 191 1, F. Fay Williams, '12, time iof; 
1912, F. Fay Williams, '12, time iof; 1913, W. Lamont, 
'16, time nf; 1914, N. E. Wheeler, '15, time n£; 1915, 
R. W. Crayton, '18, time nf. 

The Rich Medal was a gold medal, the gift of the 
Reverend William A. Rich, D.D., of Canton, and was 
awarded to the winner of the wrestling event, which was 
formerly a prominent feature of Field Day. This event 
has not been on the program for a number of years, — 
and unfortunately the medal has disappeared, and with 
it the record. 

In the early eighties there were notable athletes at 
St. Lawrence; indeed, in those days records were broken 
at the little college, which could boast of Fitzgibbons, who 



332 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

had beaten the champion of Canada, and Witherbee, 
who, after he left us, ran second in a celebrated race at 
Harvard. Everybody supposed that "Fitz" would have 
a walk-over in the quarter-mile dash on Field Day in the 
spring of 1881; "Jim" Church, '83, was the only man who 
had the nerve to go to the post against him, and all 
smiled to see the slim boy from Ohio standing beside the 
fleet, far-famed runner from Waddington. "Fitz" had 
never been defeated; he was the hero of a score of victo- 
ries, and had vanquished the great Duffy, of Toronto, at 
the fair in September. But "Jim" was going to try him 
out, and moreover he looked serious about it. The two 
men stood way up the track at the quarter-mile post, 
while the spectators waited on the grand-stand at the 
wire. They saw the smoke of the pistol, and away rushed 
the racers. "Fitz," who always started like a sprung bow, 
opened a gap of some fifty feet between them in a twin- 
kling; but in a second more the gap had begun to narrow. 
It was a pretty sight to see them coming like race-horses 
under the whip. "Fitz," with his rapid stride and head 
erect, as always when he raced, was trying to keep his 
lead. We could tell by the flash of his elbows that Jim 
worried him, and to our surprise the tall boy was slowly 
creeping up. He chased the champion like a demon; 
they were coming at a deadly pace. They had begun to 
show the wear of it, and both labored as they came on. 
"Fitz" was all out of steam as he struggled up to the 
tape, barely six feet in the lead. Both boys were badly 
used up; they were never quite so good again. We saw 
their distress when the race ended and could not help 
thinking that they had put too much into the contest. 

Baseball was probably the game played earliest at St. 
Lawrence. The St. Lawrence University Press for October, 
1870, contains the following item: 

"A meeting of the students was held on the evening 



ATHLETICS 333 

of September 5, for the purpose of organizing a Base 
Ball Club on a firmer basis than has existed heretofore. 
The result was all that could be asked for. The best 
talent in the college pledged their aid and assistance in 
supporting such a club as all should feel proud of. The 
following are the names of the officers: Foster L. Backus, 
president, Daniel Bulkeley, vice-president, S. W. Fisk, 
secretary, S. N. Judd, treasurer. Messrs. Witherbee, 
Doty, and Morris were appointed directors, and L. D. 
Witherbee, field captain." 

In the early days the contests were almost exclusively 
class events; but on May 26, 1877, we find a record of a 
game between the Athletica and the Hose nine, resulting 
in favor of the former by a score of thirty-three to fifteen. 
About this time baseball became a feature of the after- 
noon of Tree Holiday, — usually a game with a town team. 
The class of '83 had a number of excellent baseball players. 
Every one connected with the college at that time remem- 
bers St. Lawrence's famous battery, Church and Caten, 
both of '83. J. E. Church was the first man to pitch a 
curved ball at St. Lawrence, or even in Northern New 
York. Professor A. Z. Squires is said to have proved 
conclusively that the feat could not be performed, and 
was scarcely convinced by occular demonstration. Church 
had but a single curve, a wide out; but the way it fooled 
the opposing batters was amusing. 

An effort was made to revive football in the fall of 
1891; but it met with little success. There were no 
teams in the vicinity with which the college eleven could 
arrange contests, and except one game with the Canton 
High School, no games were played. The next year, 
however, saw a revival of interest, and on October 12 a 
game was played on the college campus with the Potsdam 
Normal team. This game unfortunately ended in a row. 
The Normal team objected to the decisions of their own 



334 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

umpire and quit the game about the middle of the second 
half, the score at the time being eighteen to nothing in 
favor of St. Lawrence. No other games of importance 
were played that year. Football, however, has since 
grown in favor, and has long been recognized as a promi- 
nent branch of athletics. The first game played with a 
team representing another college was against Colgate 
University at Hamilton, October 13, 1894, and was won 
by Colgate with the score sixty-six to nothing. This los- 
ing contest marks the beginning of intercollegiate athletics 
at St. Lawrence, which have since developed to such an 
extent that now athletic relations are maintained with 
institutions of college rank only. 

With the growth of athletics there comes a need for 
more careful supervision. The Athletic Council was organ- 
ized in 1898, and consisted of the director of the gymna- 
sium, as chairman, a member representing each of the 
Greek-letter fraternities, and one member elected by the 
faculty. This council was given general financial and 
business management of all branches of athletics. At the 
same time it was provided that the treasurer of the Ath- 
letic Association should be an alumnus; the election of 
captains for the various teams was left to the teams 
themselves. In order further to encourage athletics, the 
system of awarding block letters was introduced about 
this time; and if a man obtained a block letter in all 
departments, he was awarded a star. Only five men 
have thus far won this distinction, — C. H. Alexander, 
'04, L. B. Stevenson, '04, Alexander Calder, '09, Eckhardt 
Calder, ex-' 15, and E. C. Roundy, '14. 

It soon became evident that closer faculty supervision 
was needed, and a committee was appointed by the Presi- 
dent of the University to draft a series of rules for this 
purpose. The report presented was adopted, February 
10, 1902, and a standing committee, consisting of Pro- 



ATHLETICS 335 

fessor Robert D. Ford, chairman, Ledyard P. Hale, secre- 
tary, and George L. Kimball, director of the gymnasium, 
was appointed to exercise general supervision over the 
grounds and buildings devoted to athletic sports; also 
over the accounts of the athletic organizations, their 
schedules and games, and the eligibility of players as 
determined by the rules. 

In 1905 a Committee on Student Organizations was 
appointed, consisting of seven members, — the director of 
the gymnasium, two members of the faculty, two resident 
alumni, and two students; this was given general super- 
vision over all student organizations, including those con- 
cerned with athletics. 

In 1900 an arrangement was made with the Thomas 
S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology and the State 
Normal School at Potsdam for an annual Triangular Field 
Meet. A cup was purchased, to be competed for each 
year and to become the property of the school winning it 
three times in succession. Meets were held as follows : 

At Potsdam, 1900, — St. Lawrence 53 points, Clarkson 
School of Technology 64, Potsdam Normal School 40. 

At Potsdam, 1901, — St. Lawrence 49 points, Clarkson 
School of Technology 46, Potsdam Normal School 21. 

At Canton, 1903, — St. Lawrence 70 points, Clarkson 
School of Technology 13, Potsdam Normal School 43. 

At Canton, 1904, — St. Lawrence 50 points, Clarkson 
School of Technology 9, Potsdam Normal School 49. 

Thus, by winning three successive meets, St. Lawrence 
secured the final award of the cup. 

The Triangular Meet of 1901 was especially interesting 
and exciting. It was held on the Fair Grounds at Pots- 
dam. It rained hard all day, and the track was a sea of 
mud. Practically every student in the college and a 
number of townspeople attended. The contest between 



336 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

St. Lawrence and the Clarkson School of Technology was 
very close; St. Lawrence had won where she had expected 
to lose, and she had lost when she was confident of win- 
ning. The last event was the relay race; the score then 
stood St. Lawrence 44, Clarkson 46, and to win the meet 
St. Lawrence must win the relay. Hawley, '02, Steven- 
son, '04, Cushman, '02, and Duncan, '02, ran for St. 
Lawrence. Hawley had been in a number of events and 
was tired, and the track was too heavy for a tired runner. 
For about fifty yards he led, but he could not hold the 
pace; the Clarkson runner passed him and opened up a 
wide gap. It looked bad for St. Lawrence as Hawley 
passed the ring to Stevenson; but " Steve" never ran as 
he did that day, — he simply flew. Before half the dis- 
tance was covered he had passed his man, and when he 
handed the ring to Cushman he had a lead of several 
feet, which Cushman maintained. Running against Dun" 
can was "Bill" Palmer, Clarkson's celebrated sprinter and 
all-round athlete. Twice before on that day Duncan had 
beaten him (in the 100-yard and 220-yard dashes) and 
Palmer was desperate. As Cushman passed Duncan the 
ring, Duncan was off like a flash, — and Palmer quit 
before he had run half the distance. 

No meet was held in 1902. Disagreements had arisen 
between St. Lawrence and the other two schools over the 
eligibility of players on the Potsdam teams. St. Lawrence 
strenuously objected to the professionalism which, as was 
asserted, characterized them, and to the practice of allow- 
ing the same players to be registered in both schools and 
made eligible to play on the teams of both schools in com- 
petition with St. Lawrence. Representatives of the three 
schools finally met in Potsdam and adopted an agreement, 
which became operative November 15, 1902, and was to 
continue in force for two years unless changed by mutual 
consent. As both Clarkson and the Potsdam Normal were 



ATHLETICS 337 

dissatisfied with the rulings of the referee at the Track 
Meet of 1904, athletic relations were suspended and have 
not been resumed. 

By the gift of Mr. Henry C. Deane, of Ogdensburg, as 
related in a previous chapter, fourteen acres of land 
were purchased for an athletic field; and subsequently, 
through gifts amounting to about twelve thousand dollars 
from Mr. Thomas W. Weeks, of New York, the field was 
graded and a grand-stand and running track constructed. 
The field was used for football in the fall of 1906, and 
during the following summer the track was constructed. 
The track is one-fourth mile, with a two hundred and 
twenty yard straight-away, and is probably the best 
running track in the State. It was built from designs 
made by Professor Robert D. Ford, of the college faculty, 
who personally superintended its construction. 

Prior to 1902 no funds were available for the support 
of athletics. In that year the students voluntarily levied 
upon themselves an annual tax of four dollars and a half 
per student, to be collected by the treasurer of the Uni- 
versity as a regular college fee, and by him turned over 
to the treasurer of the Athletic Association for the support 
of athletics. In 1908 this fee was increased to five dollars; 
in 191 1 the fee was further increased to ten dollars, and 
free admission given to all students at all athletic events. 

In 1905 Mr. J. Fred Hammond presented to the de- 
partment of Track Athletics a silver cup, to be awarded 
each year to the winner of the greatest number of points 
at the annual field meet. The name of the winner was 
to be engraved on the cup each year, and it was to be- 
come the property of the first student winning it three 
years in succession. This prize has been awarded as fol- 
lows: 1905, Luther Moses, '05; 1906, Titus Sheard, '08; 
1907, Alexander Calder, '09, and Carlyle H. Black, '08; 1908, 
Carlyle H. Black, '08; 1909, F. Fay Williams, '12; 1910, 



33§ SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

F. Fay Williams, '12, and Aubrey D. David, ex- , i3; 191 1, 
F. Fay Williams, '12, — and Mr. Williams, having won the 
cup three years in succession, received the final award. 

Basketball was introduced at St. Lawrence through a 
series of interclass games played during the winter of 1899- 
1900. During the Easter vacation the University team, 
which had previously been organized and had played one 
or two games, took a down-state trip. Seven games were 
played during the season, and St. Lawrence won four. 
The men composing this first team were Captain Guy L. 
Harrington, '01, Herbert P. Cole, '01, Clinton H. Hoard, 
'03, Roscoe L. Barber, '02, Leslie W. Merriman, '00, 
Edward Quinn, '01, Jesse B. Hawley, '02, Nathaniel B. 
Hodskin, ex-'c>3. 

Basketball is a game in which a small college can often 
make a creditable showing against colleges much larger. 
St. Lawrence was soon in the first rank, and has defeated 
Yale, Syracuse, Rochester, Colgate, Hamilton, Hobart, 
Union, Allegheny, Ohio Wesleyan, and Manhattan. In 
no other branch of athletics has the University been so 
successful. 

The game with Yale, played January 16, 1904, was an 
interesting contest. The night before Yale had played 
Cornell at Ithaca. There had been a severe snowstorm; 
the railroads were blocked and trains far behind their 
schedules. At eight o'clock over two hundred people 
were waiting in the gymnasium, and the train due at six- 
thirty was not yet in. The crowd, however, was good- 
natured, and passed the time with singing and college 
cheers. At ten o'clock the game began. Yale scored first 
on a foul. At the end of the first half the score stood 
Yale ten, St. Lawrence nine. In the second half the play- 
ing was fast. Each man stuck so close to his opponent 
that team-work was impossible. When time was called 
the score was a tie, seventeen to seventeen. Then fol- 



ATHLETICS 339 

lowed twenty-five minutes of the fastest playing. Time 
after time the ball almost went in. St. Lawrence threw 
a foul, and Yale one, and the score was eighteen to eight- 
een. Finally St. Lawrence threw another foul and won 
the game. St. Lawrence got ten points from goals and 
nine from fouls. Yale eight points from goals and ten 
from fouls. Wagner, '04, Alexander, '04, Hurlbut, '06, 
Stevenson, '04, and Ford, ex-'oj, comprised the St. Lawrence 
team. 

The game with the University of Pennsylvania, played 
February 24, 1903, was probably the fastest exhibition of 
basketball ever witnessed in the college gymnasium. Penn- 
sylvania won by a score of eighteen to seventeen. Penn- 
sylvania's team-work was strong, and some of the baskets 
thrown were phenomenal. The St. Lawrence team con- 
sisted of Alexander, '04, Wagner, '04, Hurlbut, '06, Hast- 
ings, '03, and Pink, '04. 

The seasons of 1911-12 and 1912-13 were especially 
successful in basketball; the team which represented the 
college in 1911-12 was probably the fastest and best bal- 
anced team which St. Lawrence has ever had. It was com- 
posed of J. D. Griffin, '13, centre, Eckhardt Calder, ex-'i5, 
and Fay Lafferty, '12, forwards, Captain J. L. Logan, '12, 
and T. F. Canfield, '14, guards, with G. W. Dodds, '12, 
and C. S. Welch, '12, as substitutes. Calder, who later 
entered Columbia and played with the fast Columbia five, 
told the writer that he had never played with so strong 
and well balanced a team, and that he had never played 
against one he regarded its equal. From every college 
where this team played came back the word that it gave 
the finest exhibition of passing, shooting, and all-round 
team-work ever seen there; whether the team won or was 
defeated, the same praise was given, and this team beyond 
any other made St. Lawrence famous in basketball. Every 
man on the regular team was picked for either the All- 



34-0 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Eastern or the All-State team of that year, — a record 
which has never been equalled by any other college. The 
team of the year following was perhaps not quite so strong, 
but it was equally successful. It was made up of Captain 
J. D. Griffin, '13, centre, Eckhardt Calder, ex-' 15, and R. 
G. Lafferty, ex-' 14, forwards, T. F. Canfield, '14, and N. E. 
Wheeler, '15, guards, with E. C. Roundy, '14, and S. F. 
Griswold, '15, as substitutes. The New York trip taken 
by this team will long be remembered. Six games were 
played and only one was lost, — the Army game, and that 
by a margin of only one point. The night before this 
game, Canfield, an All-Eastern guard of the year before, 
succumbed to a severe attack of grippe; it was thought 
unwise to have him start the game, and a substitute was 
used. This so disturbed the team-work of the others, who 
were used to Canfield's playing, that the team as a whole 
did not play up to its high standard of efficiency during 
the first half. Canfield, sick as he was, went in for the 
second half, but the tide could not be stemmed. The 
other teams played were Manhattan College, Brooklyn 
Polytechnic, Crescent Athletic Club, St. John's College, 
and College of the City of New York. On the night of 
the Manhattan game, Mr. C. S. Brewer, '91, a member of 
the Board of Trustees of the University, told Coach Reed 
that he would donate fifty dollars to the team if it won a 
majority of the games played in the city. The team won 
every game, and Mr. Brewer promptly sent his check. 

For some years the record waned; St. Lawrence 
seemed to be losing her preeminence in this field. Then, 
in the season of 191 5-16, a marked improvement appeared. 
The team began slowly, suffering four defeats, including 
one especially severe at the hands of Syracuse, but fin- 
ished the season with nine consecutive victories, the most 
notable of which was over Union, which met defeat on its 
own floor for the first time in three years. Not once was 



ATHLETICS 341 

St. Lawrence defeated on the home floor, though nine 
games were played. As a final result, out of a schedule 
of sixteen games, the St. Lawrence team won twelve. 

The Directors of the Gymnasium, up to date, have 
been: George Lincoln Kimball, B.S., from 1897 to 1903; 
Louis Festino Nutting, from 1903 to 1906; P. Joseph 
Kersey, from 1906 to 1908; Ernest Vidtor Tomlinson, 
from 1908 to 1909; Willard Harvey Gildersleeve, from 
1909 to 1910; John Michael Reed, B.S., from 1910 to 
191 5; and Edward Cilley Roundy, B.S., '14, the present 
incumbent. 



342 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 



TO A DEAD CLASSMATE 

By Irving Bacheller, '82, in memory of William L. Fitzgibbons, '82. 

He started on the left road and I went on the right, 

We were young and strong and the way was long and we 

travelled day and night; 
And the haste and the waste! and the rush of the busy 

throng! 
The worried eye, and the quick good-bye, and the need to hurry 

along! 

Odd times we met on the main highway and told our hopes 

and fears, 
And after every parting came a wider flood of years. 
I love to tell of the last farewell, and this is the way it ran: 
"I dont know when I'll see you again — take care of yourself, 

ol man. 

Put the Beta pin upon his breast, with rosemary and rue, 
The cap and gown, the scarlet and brown, and the symbol 

of '82, 
And lay him low with a simple word as the loving eye grows 

dim: 
"He took care of more than his share — Christ! take care 

of him." 

The snow is falling on the head and aye the heart grows cold; 
The new friend comes to claim a share of that we gave the old, 
And men forget while the eye is wet and bend to the lug of 

the load, 
And whether or when they will meet you again is ever a chance 

of the road. 



ATHLETICS 343 

The babes are boys, the boys are men, and slowly, year by year, 
New faces throng the storied halls and old ones disappear. 
As the hair is grayed and the red lips fade let friend be friend, 

for aye 
We come and go and ere we know have spoken a long good-bye. 



CHAPTER XXI 
LAW SCHOOL 

FOUNDATION AND DISCONTINUANCE OF FIRST LAW SCHOOL 

INCEPTION OF THE BROOKLYN LAW SCHOOL ITS 

AFFILIATION WITH ST. LAWRENCE ORGANIZATION AND 

GOVERNMENT RAPID GROWTH LAW SCHOOL SO- 
CIETIES. 

AFTER various consultations with prominent law- 
yers of the county and with trustees of the Uni- 
versity, President Fisk, early in 1869, sought ways 
and means for the establishment of a law department in 
the University. Application was made to the legislature, 
and on April 22, 1869, a special act was passed creating 
the Law School of St. Lawrence University. Stillman 
Foote, then Surrogate of St. Lawrence County, Leslie 
W. Russell, District Attorney of St. Lawrence County, 
and William C. Cooke, another able lawyer, were duly 
appointed instructors in the school. Two classes were 
graduated and ten young men were admitted to the bar, 
some of whom have risen to high rank in their profession. 
Of these mention has been made in a previous chapter. 
In the winter of 1871-72, an act of the legislature 
gave to the Albany Law School and the Law School of 
Columbia University the exclusive privilege of having 
students holding their law diplomas admitted to the bar 
without further examination. This resulted in closing the 
doors of all other law schools in the State. 

Norman P. Heffley was the first person, apparently, 
to conceive the idea of establishing a law school in Brook- 



law school 345 

lyn; at all events, he was the first to put such a project 
into execution. Mr. Heffley had been for a long time 
prominent in the field of business education, and his 
experience in that line probably enabled him to see that 
there was in Brooklyn a promising opportunity for an 
institution to afford legal education. So in 1901 he took 
into his counsels William P. Richardson, a graduate of 
the Maryland University Law School and author of 
"Richardson's Commercial Law." Mr. Hefrley furnished 
the financial backing and Mr. Richardson undertook the 
organizing of the school, which was incorporated under the 
Regents of the University of the State in November, 
1901. The directors were Mr. Heffley and Mr. Richard- 
son, together with Charles Hermann, Alvan R. Johnson, 
and Henry Escher, Jr.; there was also an advisory board 
consisting of S. C. T. Dodd, the Honorable Almet F. 
Jenks, the Honorable Wilmot M. Smith, the Honorable 
Frederic A. Ward, and George F. Elliot. The faculty 
consisted of Mr. Hefrley, president, Mr. Richardson, dean, 
George Doan Russell, Evarts L. Prentiss, Henry Escher, 
Jr., and Henry M. Dater. The Honorable William J. 
Gaynor and the Honorable William B. Hurd were secured 
as special lecturers. 

The school commenced its sessions on September 28, 
1901. The sessions were held during the first year in the 
buildings of the Hefrley School on Tyerson Street, 
Brooklyn. There were enrolled that year twenty-nine 
students, — five Seniors, fourteen Juniors, six in the 
commercial course, and four in the real-estate course. 

The next year it was found necessary to move the 
school down town, and two upper floors of the building 
at 187 Montague Street were rented for this purpose. 
Here the school opened in the fall of 1902. The enrol- 
ment that year was one hundred and twelve students, 
— nineteen Seniors, sixty-three Juniors, and thirty 



346 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

special students. Here the school remained until the 
spring of 1904. 

Meanwhile Dean Richardson was seeking alliance with 
some college or university, and having observed that St. 
Lawrence University once had a law school, which had 
been discontinued, he entered into correspondence with 
President Gunnison with a view to such an affiliation. 
Doctor Gunnison heartily approved the plan and did what 
he could to further it, with the result that in the spring 
of 1903, with the approval of the Regents of the Univer- 
sity of the State, the Brooklyn Law School came under 
the scholastic control of St. Lawrence University, although 
maintaining its separate corporate entity. A joint board 
of control was established, composed of the directors of 
the Law School named above and the following members 
of the Board of Trustees of the University: President 
Gunnison, Walter B. Gunnison, Charles H. Russell, 
Foster L. Backus, Irving Bacheller, and Nelson L. Rob- 
inson. In November, 1903, the University bought the 
stock of the Law School corporation, so that the school 
became an integral part of the University. The manage- 
ment was placed in charge of an executive committee of 
the University trustees, composed of Messrs. Backus, 
Russell, W. B. Gunnison, Robinson, and Bacheller, and 
an advisory board was organized consisting of these 
trustees, with President Gunnison, William P. Richardson, 
Norman P. Heffley, the Honorable Edgar M. Cullen, the 
Honorable William B. Hurd, the Honorable Almet F. 
Jenks, Alvin R. Johnson, and the Honorable Wilmot M. 
Smith. 

The students for the scholastic year 1903-4 numbered 
one hundred and eighty-one. In April, 1904, the School 
moved to the quarters on the third floor of the extension 
of the Eagle Building which it still occupies. The faculty 
has been increased until it now includes fourteen pro- 



law school 347 

fessors and four instructors. Dean Richardson continues 
in charge, and the success of the school is doubtless largely 
due to his management. 

In the scholastic year 1904-5, a post-graduate class 
was established, with a course leading to the degree of 
Master of Laws, and for college graduates, Doctor of 
Jurisprudence. The students numbered two hundred and 
thirty-one in that year. In 1905-6 there were enrolled 
two hundred and seventy-five students, and in 1906-7 
three hundred and forty-two. The increase in the require- 
ments for admission to the bar has resulted in some falling 
off in the number, but it is believed that the quality will 
be thereby improved. Since 191 2 three years of study 
have been required for the degree of Bachelor of Laws. 
In 191 5 an optional fourth year was added by the trustees. 

Early in the history of the school two societies were 
started by the students, one known as the Evarts Law 
Club and the other as the Theta Phi fraternity. The 
former has since become the Evarts Chapter of Phi Delta 
Phi. Both are in flourishing condition. There is also an 
alumni association which holds each year a well-attended 
banquet. Two distinguishing features have characterized 
the history of the Brooklyn Law School. One is its rapid 
growth, amply justifying the belief of its founders that 
Brooklyn afforded a suitable field for such a school. 
Another feature is the remarkable school spirit prevail- 
ing among the students and alumni, manifested in a degree 
rare in professional schools. 



CHAPTER XXII 
SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE 

ESTABLISHMENT — PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL — ERECTION 

OF MAIN BUILDING INITIAL DIFFICULTIES FIRST 

INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS COURSES IN MANUAL 

TRAINING AND DOMESTIC SCIENCE — NEW BUILDINGS 

AND ADDED FACILITIES FACULTY CHANGES GROWTH 

IN NUMBERS AND DEVELOPMENT OF CURRICULUM. 

ALTHOUGH Northern New York is an important 
farming and dairying region, until recently the 
nearest school of agriculture was two hundred 
miles away. The desirability of the establishment of 
such a school in connection with St. Lawrence University 
had often been suggested, especially by the late General 
Newton Martin Curtis, always an earnest friend of the 
college; and the idea had been received with much favor 
by those for whose benefit the proposal was made. The 
same idea was strongly suggested to President Gunnison 
through association with agricultural college men at Albany. 
So much was he impressed that he presently visited the 
State Agricultural College at Cornell and there had a con- 
ference with Dean Bailey, whom he found, greatly to his 
satisfaction, favorable to the idea and ready to aid in 
every way. The next step was to confer with the State 
Senator and the Assemblyman representing the district:, 
George R. Malby, ex-'8i, and Edwin A. Merritt, Jr., 
both of whom entered heartily into the project:, promising 
all possible aid, — a promise that was most loyally ful- 
filled. Subsequently the transfer of Mr. Malby from the 




a ^ 

H-) 

O 

S5 o 
< ^ 



<3 

CO 



SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE 349 

State Senate to Congress deprived the proposed school of 
the direct support of one of its most valuable friends, but 
Mr. Merritt, then one of the most influential members of 
the legislature, still remained as its able and sufficient 
advocate. 

A bill entitled, "An act to establish a State School of 
Agriculture at St. Lawrence University and making an 
appropriation therefor," was introduced into the Assembly 
by Mr. Merritt on February 26, 1906. It called for an 
appropriation of eighty thousand dollars for the purpose 
of constructing and equipping a suitable building for a 
State School of Agriculture at St. Lawrence University. 
The objects and purposes are declared to be: 

1. The instruction of pupils attending such school, in 

agriculture and all allied subjects. 

2. The giving of instruction throughout the State, by 

means of schools, lectures, and other university 
extension methods for the promotion of agricultural 
knowledge. 

3. The conducting of investigations and experiments for 

the purpose of ascertaining the best methods of fer- 
tilization of fields, gardens, and plantations, and the 
best modes of tillage and farm management and 
improvement of live stock. 

4. The printing of leaflets and the dissemination of agri- 

cultural knowledge by means of lectures and other- 
wise; the printing and free distribution of the results 
of such investigations and experiments, and the pub- 
lication of bulletins containing such information, as 
may be deemed desirable and profitable in promoting 
the agricultural interests of the State. 
Articles 1 and 2 were subsequently amended to read 

as follows: 

"Such school shall have for its objects and purposes, 

the elementary and practical instruction of pupils attend- 



350 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

ing such school, in agriculture and all allied subjects; the 
giving of instruction by means of schools, lectures, and 
other university extension methods for the promotion of 
agricultural knowledge" — the words "throughout the 
State" being omitted from Article 2. Also the following 
words were added to Article 4: "Such work to be con- 
ducted so far as practicable in harmony with the College 
of Agriculture at Cornell University." The bill further 
declares that the Board of Trustees of St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity shall have the general care, supervision, and con- 
trol of such school and all its affairs, and to carry out its 
objects and purposes shall — 

1. Employ and at pleasure remove teachers, experts, 

chemists, and all necessary clerks and assistants. 

2. Adopt rules not inconsistent with law, controlling the 

affairs of such school. 

3. Prescribe the course of instruction and the methods of 

investigation and experiments to be followed in such 
school, and the degrees to be conferred on gradua- 
tion therefrom. 
It had been hoped that the proposed building would be 
started before the end of the summer of 1906, or at least 
not later than the early spring of 1907; but it was not 
until more than a year had elapsed after the passage of 
the bill that a complete set of plans issued from the State 
Architect's office and the long-expected structure began 
to materialize. Even so, when the plans were submitted 
to contractors it was found, notwithstanding the liberal 
appropriation by the State, that the cost of the building 
must be reduced many thousands of dollars. It was late 
in the summer of 1907 before the construction company 
that had assumed the contract was ready to begin work. 
And not yet was all tribulation over, — for this company, 
financially weak at the start, was further crippled by the 
money stringency which followed, and early in the spring 



SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE 351 

of 1908, with the building not more than half finished, 
disappeared from the scene. It was again late summer, 
more than two years after the passage of the bill, when a 
new construction company undertook to complete the 
work. It was then, however, pushed forward as rapidly as 
possible, so that on February 15, 1909, the long-deferred 
hope attained fruition. On that date, with general re- 
joicing, the school held its first services in the new chapel 
and received its classes in the finely appointed class- 
rooms. 

Meanwhile, the delay in the erection of the building 
had caused no serious delay in the opening of the school. 
Early in 1907 a dean was secured in the person of Kary 
Cadmus Davis, Ph.D., from the agricultural school at 
Menomonie, Wisconsin. He assumed his duties on July I 
of that year; and at the beginning of the college year 
in September, the School of Agriculture began its work in 
a farm-house on the farm which the University had pre- 
viously purchased for its use. The faculty at this time 
consisted of the dean, Doctor Davis, as Instructor in 
Agronomy, Doctor James Milford Payson as Instructor 
in Academic Subjects, and Observer Merton L. Fuller, 
of the Weather Bureau, as Instructor in Farm Economics. 
Doctor Payson, preeminently, has been from the start a 
most energetic and efficient officer, and untiring in his 
efforts as an instructor; both as a representative of the 
school in its larger relations to the public, and in its in- 
ternal administration, his services have been invaluable. 

As regards externals the school did not have a very 
promising beginning. The quarters were cramped and the 
equipment meager. Yet a class of five students appeared 
at the first recitation, and this gradually increased to 
fifteen, of whom nine were graduated in June, 1909. 
Notwithstanding the disadvantages of this first year, it is 
doubtful whether any class will do better work in the 



352 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

more prosperous days that are now and are yet to be. 
The teachers were devoted, the students in earnest, and 
neither teachers nor students will ever forget those days of 
mutual sympathy and helpfulness in the old house. The 
time will come when those students will be proud to re- 
member that they were participants in that day of small 
things. 

Early in the spring of 1908 Dean Davis resigned, leav- 
ing before the close of the school year. Within a few 
weeks, however, a new dean was secured in the person of 
Herbert E. Cook, for many years a successful institute 
conductor and well-known to the leading agriculturists of 
the State. Under Dean Cook the original plan of the 
school has been largely carried out. That plan was to 
have a specifically agricultural department, giving in- 
struction in animal husbandry, dairying, farm crops, and 
kindred subjects, with a chemistry department, depart- 
ments of manual training and domestic science; also a 
department of academic subjects, such as English, arith- 
metic, book-keeping, commercial law, political economy, 
civics, and parliamentary law, these being thought essen- 
tial to the proper training of a farmer, especially with a 
view to business responsibilities and civic duties. Manual 
training and domestic science were omitted the first year. 
Their addition in the fall of 1908, with a considerable in- 
crease both in the number of students and in the teaching 
force, made additional quarters necessary. The chemistry 
classes under Frederick W. Storrs, M.S. — a St. Lawrence 
graduate who, after post-graduate study at Johns Hopkins 
and Cornell, had been engaged as instructor in this depart- 
ment — did their experimental work in the college labora- 
tories in Carnegie Hall. The manual training was 
established in the basement of the same building; most of 
the ordinary class-room work was done in vacant rooms in 
Richardson Hall; while to the girls of the domestic science 



SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE 353 

department, ably conducted by Miss Lena Paige Bray 
(now Mrs. B. S. Stevens), was now bequeathed, with all 
its sacred memories, the old house. 

There could be no better evidence of the recognized 
need of such a school than the fact that, even under these 
unfavorable conditions, more than sixty students were 
registered for that year; and the quality of the instruction 
and the earnestness of the students are both evidenced in 
the fact that progress was not much accelerated by the 
subsequent removal into the new building, with all its 
attractiveness and admirable equipment. The young 
women were enthusiastic from the first, notwithstanding 
the fact that twenty-one of them were made to touch 
elbows somewhat too closely for the best results in what 
had been the parlors of the old farm-house. In June, 1909, 
the school graduated its first class, comprising the nine 
faithful students, already mentioned above, who had 
remained through the first year and returned to finish the 
course. The graduating exercises were held in Fisher Hall, 
which was entirely filled with the friends of the students 
and the school. Three members of the class delivered 
theses, acquitting themselves most creditably, Homer E. 
Palmer, Alanson Whittaker, and Arthur Head. Addresses 
were made to the graduates by Doctor Richmond Fisk and 
Doctor A. B. Hervey. 

Though much was yet to be desired, the school opened 
in the fall of 1909, with greatly increased facilities. The 
State, having authorized this undertaking, had never been 
niggardly in its support. For the first year it appropriated 
ten thousand dollars for maintenance. In the winter of 
1908, in addition to seventeen thousand five hundred 
dollars, for maintenance, it appropriated thirty thousand 
dollars for a dairy building, which was erected during the 
summer of 1909 and made ready for occupancy by Decem- 
ber 1. In the winter of 1909, the legislature appropriated 



3S4 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

in addition to thirty thousand dollars for maintenance, 
seven thousand dollars for equipping the main building, 
and fifteen thousand dollars for a barn, which was com- 
pleted about midwinter, 1910. 

At the beginning of the school year, 1909-10, several 
additions were made to the faculty and one change. Miss 
Cornelia Palmer was engaged as assistant in domestic 
science, Miss Nina Morrow as assistant in English, Doctor 
Arthur G. Hall as lecturer in veterinary science, Clayton 
I. Swayze as assistant in animal husbandry and dairying, 
Homer E. Palmer, a graduate of the previous year, as 
assistant in chemistry, and Asa George Moulton as 
assistant in poultry. At the same time Francis S. Collier 
took the place of Percy R. Stuart as instructor in manual 
training. Notwithstanding the fact that several who had 
entered in 1908 did not return this year, there were reg- 
istered one hundred and eighteen students, — including 
short-course students in agriculture and in dairying, and 
special students in domestic science. A short course in 
dairying was begun December 1 and continued to March 1, 
with Horace Rees as teacher in cheese-making, Thomas 
F. Rutherford in butter-making, and Mr. Swayze in charge 
of the laboratory work. Twenty-four students registered 
for this course, of whom twenty received certificates of 
graduation. The equipment was new and modern, the 
instruction of a high order, and excellent results were ob- 
tained. Seventy-five students in agriculture and domestic 
science remained through the entire year. The chemistry, 
manual training, and domestic science departments had 
been especially well equipped. The veterinary depart- 
ment also had been fairly well equipped, and a small 
herd of Holstein cows had been put in the new barn, — 
so that, on the whole, very satisfactory work was done. 
The graduating exercises were held in the new assembly 
hall in the dairy building on the afternoon of June 7. 



SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE 355 

Notwithstanding the rain, the room was crowded to its 
utmost capacity, many being unable to gain admittance. 
Twenty-three received certificates of graduation, — fifteen 
in domestic science and eight in agriculture. The theses 
were given by Clara Amelia Lincoln, Minard H. Power, 
and Robert M. Thompson. Miss Martha Van Rensselaer, 
of Cornell University, delivered an address to the girls, 
and Mr. Edward Van Alstyne, director of institutes, to 
the boys. 

After the legislative enactment by which the School of 
Agriculture was established, before any buildings were 
erected, the University had purchased for use in connection 
with the work of the new department the "Bassett Farm," 
of some sixty-three acres, adjoining the campus on the 
southern side. It was a worn-out piece of ground, but 
just because of this was destined to furnish a valuable 
object lesson in the restoration of depleted land. In the 
early spring of 1909 John J. Sheahan, of Denmark, New 
York, was engaged as superintendent, and under his man- 
agement, aided by the counsel of Dean Cook, the pro- 
ductiveness of the soil was restored in less than two 
years. Hedge-rows and stones were removed and roads 
laid out; and today the farm is constantly being visited 
by farmers to view and admire what has been accomplished. 

During 1910 and up to the present writing, in addition 
to the thirty-five thousand dollars granted for annual 
maintenance, the following appropriations have been made. 
In 1910, twenty-seven thousand dollars for the completion 
of the plant; in 191 1, sixteen thousand dollars for 
the same purpose; in 191 2, twenty thousand dollars for the 
same purpose; in 1913, four thousand and seventy-two 
dollars and fifteen cents to reimburse St. Lawrence Uni- 
versity for money expended for the school, and a thou- 
sand dollars for repairs. The buildings now comprise the 
following: the Main Building, of brick and reinforced 



356 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

concrete with Potsdam sandstone trimmings, containing 
offices, class-rooms, laboratories, shops, and the domestic 
science department; the Assembly Building, containing 
horticultural, bacteriological, and milk-testing laboratories, 
offices, and an assembly hall seating four hundred people; 
the Piggery, containing clinic and slaughter house; the 
Barn, containing storage for hay and grain, stabling for 
live stock, and class-rooms for stock-judging; a building 
equipped for butter and cheese manufacture and milk 
handling, also for wood and iron working, to which a for- 
cing house is attached; a Tool House for the storage and 
study of farm machinery; and a Poultry Building, adapted 
to teaching and demonstration, with feed storage, slaughter 
outfit, class-rooms, incubation cellars, and housing for 
eight hundred fowls. 

Changes have continued to occur in the faculty. At 
the beginning of the school year 1910-n, Mr. Edgar Per- 
kins Walls was engaged as instructor in horticulture, and 
Doctor Arthur George Hall was made instructor in animal 
husbandry in addition to veterinary science. Homer E. 
Palmer took the place of Mr. Swayze in the dairy labora- 
tory. In domestic science Miss Ethel Wright took Miss 
Cornelia Palmer's place, and Miss Mary Adele Chaney, who 
had been graduated from the department the previous year, 
was appointed as second assistant. At the end of the 
school year both Doctor Hall and Mr. Walls resigned, 
Doctor Hall's place being filled by the appointment of 
Paul B. Bennetch, from Pennsylvania State, while the 
work of Mr. Walls was taken up by Robert Pearson 
Armstrong, an Amherst man. Miss Alida Martin, a grad- 
uate of the college and for two years teacher of science 
in the Canton High School, was engaged as assistant in 
chemistry, so that Mr. Palmer was left free for work in 
bacteriology and milk testing. 

Much to the regret of all, Miss Morrow resigned as 



SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE 357 

assistant in the academic department, because of failing 
health. The school, however, was fortunate in securing 
for this position Miss Agnes Frances McDonald, also a 
graduate of the college, who had been for two years teacher 
of English in the Tupper Lake High School. John Purves 
Porteous was added to the faculty as instructor in dairy 
work. In the summer of 191 2, Mr. Bennetch resigned 
from the animal-husbandry department, and Hiram Alfred 
Dodge, from the University of Vermont, took his place. 
Mr. Collier also resigned, and Robert Holcomb Smith, 
who had just been graduated, was engaged for the posi- 
tion. Mr. Asa Moulton having resigned from the poultry 
department, Mr. O. L. Barber took his place. Miss Ethel 
Wright also resigned from the domestic science depart- 
ment, and Miss Edna Mandeville Colony, who had been 
teacher of domestic science in the Glens Falls High School, 
became her successor. Mrs. Delia Barrows Hemstreet, a 
recent graduate of the department, was engaged as an 
assistant for half time. In the summer of 191 3, Mr. 
Armstrong and Mr. Barber having left the school, Robert 
Bier, of Pennsylvania State, was appointed to Mr. Arm- 
strong's place, and Mr. Barber's work was assigned to 
William Jackson Hagar, a recent graduate, and Raymond 
Anderson of the Senior class. In 1914 both Miss Colony 
and Mr. Hagar resigned. Miss Colony's place was then 
taken by Miss Chaney, Miss Frances Eleanor Woolworth 
being engaged to fill Miss Chaney's former position. James 
Washburn, a recent graduate, was retained to fill the posi- 
tion vacated by Mr. Hagar. 

The following constitute the present faculty: 
Herbert Ellis Cook, Director; James Milford Payson, 
Secretary; Frederick William Storrs, Lena Bray Stevens, 
Robert Bier, Robert Holcomb Smith, George Leigh 
Stevenson, Agnes Frances McDonald, Alida Martin, 
Roy Redcay Gockley, John Purves Porteous, Floyd Lewis 



35$ SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

Dunn, Willard Ezra Church, Mary Adele Chaney, Frances 
Eleanor Woolworth. 

Early in the school year 1911-12, the executive com- 
mittee and faculty began to consider the feasibility of 
remodelling the courses. Finally, in the spring of 191 2, 
it was decided to arrange a two-year course and a three- 
year course, — students of less than two years training 
in the high school to enter the first year of the three- 
year course, and if they remained the full three years and 
did the prescribed work, to receive diplomas, but if they 
remained only two years, to receive simply certificates of 
attendance for that time. Students who had received 
two or more years of high-school training were allowed to 
enter the second year and might be graduated in two 
years. No academic degrees are conferred. The above 
arrangement went into effect in September, 191 2, and thus 
far has proved very satisfactory. 

Indeed, the promoters of this school have reason to be 
much gratified with its success. It has grown to its pres- 
ent proportions within ten years. During this time it 
has registered about eight hundred students, the annual 
registration gradually increasing from fifteen to a maxi- 
mum of one hundred and eighty-two. And it has not 
only increased in numbers but in efficiency as well; for 
the students are now entering with better preparation, 
which makes possible much more effective work in the 
school itself. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
CLINTON LIBERAL INSTITUTE 

ORIGIN OF THE SCHOOL — TIES CONNECTING IT WITH ST. 

LAWRENCE ORIGINAL PURPOSE EARLY TEACHERS 

DOCTOR T. J. SAWYER — DOLPHUS SKINNER FINANCIAL 

STRAIN TRANSFER TO FORT PLAIN DOCTOR L. J. 

FLETCHER PRINCIPAL C. V. PARSELL MILITARY IN- 
STRUCTION PERIOD OF DECLINE LOSS OF MAIN 

BUILDING BY FIRE TRANSFER TO CANTON AND UNION 

WITH ST. LAWRENCE. 

THE Clinton Liberal Institute was the initial edu- 
cational venture of the Universalist denomination 
in America. It was the first-fruits of the move- 
ment that ultimately resulted in establishing St. Lawrence 
University. Many who were interested in this enterprise 
were likewise influential in founding the Theological School 
at Canton, and some of those connected with the Institute 
as trustees and teachers were associated also, at one time 
or another, with the University. Notably, the Reverend 
Thomas J. Sawyer, D.D., for a number of years principal 
of the Clinton school, was the first president of the Uni- 
versity corporation, and the Reverend Asa Saxe, D.D., 
long president of the Board of Trustees of the Institute, 
was for many years an active trustee of St. Lawrence; 
while the Reverend Daniel Ballou, '6i, of the first class of 
the Divinity School, was for nearly thirty years the effi- 
cient secretary of the Clinton board. Even more note- 
worthy, from a St. Lawrence viewpoint, is the facl: that 
the late President A. G. Gaines seems to have obtained as 



360 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

a teacher in this academy almost the first of that early 
experience in educational work which was destined to 
prove so useful in his subsequent career as the honored 
head of the college. At a later date students not infre- 
quently passed from the school of preparation at Clinton 
to the higher institution of learning in the North Country. 
Moreover, through a long period, both schools were under 
the control of the New York State Convention of Univer- 
salists. Thus by many natural ties they were brought into 
more or less close relations with one another. 

The reasons for starting the Institute were two-fold. 
First, there was the desire to have a training school for 
young men "designed for the ministry of reconciliation. " 
Though this denominational ambition was not realized 
until the Theological School was founded in connection 
with St. Lawrence, it is worthy of note that during the 
seven years that Doctor Sawyer was in charge at Clinton 
he conducted a training class for prospective ministers, and 
sent some thirty-seven men, many of them afterwards 
prominent, into the ministry of the Universalist Church. 
But the more immediate occasion of the establishment of 
the Institute was a general demand for a secondary school 
under Universalist control. Most of the schools of this 
class in the early part of the nineteenth century were 
sectarian in spirit; proselyting among the boys and girls 
attending them was common. Parents of Universalist 
faith who had no academy of their own to which to send 
their children did not relish this situation; hence when the 
Reverend Dolphus Skinner, a well-known minister, on 
April 30, 183 1, suggested in "The Gospel Magazine and 
Advocate/' a paper published in Utica, that Universalists 
start a school of their own, the response was prompt and 
favorable. Less than two weeks later, the State Conven- 
tion of Universalists, held at Clinton, appointed a com- 
mittee to consider the project. It was speedily decided to 



CLINTON LIBERAL INSTITUTE 361 

found such a school and to locate it at Clinton. More 
exactly, as coeducation was not at that time generally 
regarded with favor, two seminaries, for boys and girls 
respectively, were planned. The Reverend Stephen R. 
Smith undertook to raise the necessary funds, and Doctor 
Sawyer is authority for the statement that to the tireless 
labors and consecration of this clergyman the establish- 
ment of Clinton Liberal Institute is chiefly due. While he 
was still engaged in this canvass, on November 7, 183 1, 
the two schools of the Institute opened with fifty students 
in charge of G. H. Perkins and Jane M. Burr. The sessions 
were held in two rented buildings, and board could be had, 
it is stated, "in respectable families" for "from $1.25 to 
$1.50 per week, and no extra charge for fuel." Early in 
1832 one of the trustees, John W. Hale of Clinton, erected 
at his own expense a three-story structure for the girls' 
seminary; and later in the same year a four-story stone 
academy for boys, containing some forty-four rooms 
besides a chapel, was completed. This latter structure 
was made possible by the generosity and devotion of 
another trustee resident in Clinton, Joseph Stebbins. The 
name of the school — Clinton Liberal Institute — seems 
to have been derived from its first location and the fact 
that it was an institution of the so-called religious "lib- 
erals." How heartily the trustees reacted from the pre- 
vailing proselyting spirit is revealed in this article of the 
constitution adopted by them: "Students shall in no 
case be persuaded by any officer or teacher to attend 
meetings of any denomination, and no minister of any 
denomination shall have liberty to perform the service of 
worship within this Institute." It is interesting to learn 
that not only was this article rescinded later, but that in 
1 841 a resolution of the Board of Trustees urges that 
"students be affectionately entreated to attend public 
worship." 



362 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

The seminary was thus fairly launched, but not on an 
untroubled sea. Repeatedly — almost periodically during 
its first years and not rarely later — it encountered finan- 
cial storms that seemed certain to overwhelm it; but 
through the skill and persistent efforts of its pilots it 
weathered them all. In due season bequests began to 
come, and ultimately a moderate endowment was accu- 
mulated; but through a long period the life of the school 
was an incessant struggle with floating debts and inade- 
quate resources. Several times the Reverend L. C. Browne 
was sent out to collect funds, and many and urgent were 
the appeals made to the Universalists of the State to save 
and support the institution they had founded. 

The history of the school divides naturally, though 
unevenly, into two chapters. The first covers the career 
of the Institute at Clinton, where it was first located. 
The second extends from its removal to Fort Plain, in 
1878, to its incorporation with St. Lawrence University 
in 1901. The earlier years were attended with varying 
fortune; for the most part the resources were meager, 
though the attendance was fair. When Doctor Thomas 
J. Sawyer became principal, in 1845, tne Institute entered 
upon a period of marked growth in popularity if not in 
wealth. He was a man of strong personality and natural 
dignity, with the instincts of a born teacher. He gathered 
about him a large and capable faculty, and scholars 
flocked to the school; there were at one time nearly three 
hundred pupils. It was during the later years of Doctor 
Sawyer's administration that Absalom Graves Gaines, 
then a young man just out of college, became a teacher in 
the Institute. In this period also the White Female Sem- 
inary was erected, — named in honor of Miss Carolyn 
White, a beloved preceptress in earlier years. But though 
outwardly prosperous, the Institute was sinking deeper and 
deeper in debt. The years following the resignation of 



CLINTON LIBERAL INSTITUTE 363 

Doctor Sawyer, in 1853, were especially marked by strug- 
gles with financial difficulties, and by gloomy forecasts of 
the speedy extinction of the institution. In 1859 the New 
York State Convention of Universalists assumed temporary 
control of affairs, and the Reverend Dolphus Skinner was 
elected president of the Board of Trustees. He was the 
original sponsor of the school, and in this crisis showed 
himself ready and able to meet all the obligations of such 
a relation. Under his energetic management, which con- 
tinued until his death, ten years later, the affairs of the 
Institute assumed a new aspect. Money was raised by 
his efforts sufficient to pay off the entire indebtedness, 
amounting to over eleven thousand dollars, and a large 
additional amount was secured to make needed repairs and 
to build and equip a gymnasium. The Institute even 
found itself rich enough, in this decade, to contribute one 
thousand dollars to the building of a Universalist Church 
in Clinton. At the same time tuition and board seem to 
have been phenomenally inexpensive. In 1864 it was 
voted to raise the charge for tuition and board from fifty- 
five dollars to sixty dollars per term for boys, and from 
fifty dollars to sixty dollars in the department for girls. 
Salaries were correspondingly low, ranging down from a 
maximum of about nine hundred dollars — often less — 
for the principal. But if plain living was necessitated, 
high thinking was evidently joined with it. The testi- 
money of grateful pupils is that these poorly paid teachers 
did not measure their services by their remuneration. In 
addition to those previously mentioned, some especially 
held in honor in this early period were Principal P. R. 
Kendall, Miss H. M. Parkhurst, and Miss Mary S. Bacon 
— both the latter in charge of the female seminary for a 
considerable time. 

The Reverend Dolphus Skinner endeavored to per- 
petuate his good offices in behalf of the Institute by be- 



364 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

queathing to its library many valuable books and to its 
endowment one thousand dollars — the first legacy of any 
kind which the institution received. In 1868, a year before 
his death, the charter of the school was amended by the 
legislature, in the face of opposition on the part of the 
trustees, by a provision that thereafter all vacancies on 
the Board of Trustees should be filled by the New York 
State Convention of Universalists. The amendment was 
rescinded in 1873 at the instance of the trustees, but was 
re-enacted in the fall of the same year; and this is the 
present status of the corporation. 

From this time until the removal to Fort Plain the 
school was in its lean years, and although an unexpected 
bequest of twenty-five thousand dollars from the estate 
of John Craig, of Rochester, brought timely assistance, 
the financial condition of the school went from bad to 
worse. Yearly inroads were made on invested funds, and 
debt was accumulated until, in 1878, after having vainly 
endeavored to dispose of it, the trustees, voted to close 
the department for boys. Meanwhile, although the num- 
ber of students declined, a creditable faculty was main- 
tained, and among the names of the teachers appear some 
very familiar to Laurentians, — Foster L. Backus, '73, 
principal in 1873-74, Frank McClusky, '75, L. D. With- 
erbee, '71, and Abbie S. Kendall (now Mrs. F. N. 
Cleaveland). 

The real difficulty appears to have been that the plant 
was no longer adequate; better and more up-to-date 
buildings and equipment were demanded. When, therefore, 
citizens of Fort Plain offered to furnish a modern building 
and suitable grounds in case the Institute should be trans- 
ferred to that town, it was felt by the great majority of 
those interested that this change should be made. Ac- 
cordingly the removal was accomplished, though not with- 
out some friction; time, however, abundantly justified the 



CLINTON LIBERAL INSTITUTE 365 

transfer. The old buildings at Clinton were sold; the 
stone in the building for boys was in 1905 purchased by 
Hamilton College and built into one of its dormitories. 

The Institute carried with it to Fort Plain nearly 
thirty-four thousand dollars of invested funds; it was 
provided with a large and excellent building — the former 
Fort Plain Seminary, reconstructed — which was dedicated 
in September, 1879. A new head was now appointed, 
Doctor L. J. Fletcher, at that time pastor of the Univer- 
salist church at Fort Plain. He was a trustee both of the 
Institute and of St. Lawrence University; he had shown 
himself a man of energy and executive ability, and much 
was expected; but he had scarcely assumed his duties 
when death in his family compelled him to lay down the 
task. In his stead, C. V. Parsell, then principal of the 
Fairfield Seminary, was elected. 

This was a fortunate choice. Principal Parsell re- 
mained in charge for fourteen years, and during this 
period made the school one of the chief private secondary 
institutions of the State. The equipment was enlarged 
and new departments added; in 1882, a gymnasium was 
erected ; and in 1886, through the gift of one thousand 
dollars by H. P. Porter, of Corfu, a commercial depart- 
ment was added. Finally, in 1891, a military department 
was organized and an officer of the regular army detailed 
as instructor. The introduction of a military department 
necessitated the addition of an armory, and in 1891 such a 
building was erected. The faculty in 1892 numbered 
twenty-one, and two hundred and forty-three students 
were registered. Among those who served as teachers at 
various times during the Parsell regime are found Frederic 
S. Lee, '78, Eva M. Smith, '88, and George R. Hardie, 
'90. Dewitt Lamphear, T.S. '8o, Augustus B. Church, 
'86, and J. D. Corby, T.S. '88, were among the students 
during this period. 



366 SIXTY YEARS OF ST. LAWRENCE 

In 1893, to the regret of all, Principal Parsell resigned 
his position, becoming principal of the Cascadilla Seminary 
at Ithaca. The years immediately ensuing were fairly 
prosperous, but soon the history of the school became a 
discouraging record of diminished attendance and a grow- 
ing deficit. At last, in 1900, the trustees decided to close 
the department for girls; but they were never called on 
to carry out their purpose. On Sunday morning, March 
25, 1900, the main building in some manner caught fire, 
and by six o'clock the whole structure was a heap of ruins. 
This calamity precipitated a far more serious crisis in the 
affairs of the institution. The loss was estimated at one 
hundred thousand dollars, and the insurance was relatively 
small. To rebuild would require at least one hundred 
thousand dollars, and as the need of a denominational 
school of this character was no longer generally felt, it was 
much doubted that the Universalists of the State would 
respond to an appeal for such a purpose. At the same 
time there was a sentiment that the funds should be em- 
ployed in some manner harmonious with the aims of the 
donors. It was therefore counselled by the Executive 
Board of the New York State Convention of Universalists 
that the Institute be incorporated with St. Lawrence 
University and its remaining resources there made use of 
according to the original intent, "for the public education 
and instruction of youths." Accordingly, at a meeting of 
the Board of Trustees of the Institute, held at Utica on April 
24, 1901, Doctor Asa Saxe, for many years president of the 
corporation, introduced a resolution to this effect, which was 
adopted; and the Regents of the University of the State 
having given their sanction, the transfer was duly effected. 
This was during the early years of the administration of 
President Gunnison at St. Lawrence, and largely on his 
initiative, as already related in a previous chapter. 



APPENDIX 



TRACK AND FIELD RECORDS 

One-hundred- yard dash: William L. Fitzgibbons, '82, 
10 seconds, Field Day, 1881; George E. Van Delinder, '07, 10 
seconds, Colgate Meet, 1906; F. Fay Williams, '12, 10 seconds, 
Middlebury Meet, 1912. 

Two-twenty- yard dash: Richard S. Terry, '98, 24 seconds, 
Field Day, 1895; Branton M. Duncan, '02, 23! seconds, Field 
Day, 1901; George E. Van Delinder, '07, 22^ seconds, Field 
Day, 1905. 

Four-forty- yard dash: William L. Fitzgibbons, 52 seconds, 
Field Day, 1881. 

Half-mile race: Lawson C. Rich, '82, 2 minutes, 19 
seconds, Field Day, 1879; L. Roy Smith, '00, 2 minutes, 10^ 
seconds, Field Day, 1898; G. W. Dodds, '12, 2 minutes, 
6f seconds, Field Day, 191 1. 

One-mile race: J. Clarence Lee, 'j6, 5 minutes, 28 
seconds, Field Day, 1876; Fred H. Emerson, ex- , 02, 5 minutes, 
13 seconds, Field Day, 1901; Harlow G. Farmer, '04, 5 minutes, 
2 seconds, Field Day, 1902; Luther Moses, '05, 4 minutes, 58f 
seconds, Field Day, 1903; Lawrence P. Quinn, '12, 4 minutes, 
5 if seconds, Field Day, 1910; Lawrence P. Quinn, '12, 4 minutes, 
47 seconds, Field Day, 191 1. 

Two-mile race: Luther Moses, '05, 13 minutes, 44 
seconds, Field Day, 1905; Roscoe J. Backus, 'io, 11 minutes, 
<J7 seconds, Rochester Meet, 1907; Roscoe J. Backus, 'io, 11 
minutes, Field Day, 1907; Howard I. Slocum, '15, 10 minutes, 
38 seconds, Field Day, 191 2. 

One-twenty- yard hurdles: Richard S. Terry, '98, 17^ 
seconds, Field Day, 1897; Carlyle H. Black, '08, i6£ seconds, 
Field Day, 1908. 

Two-twenty- yard hurdles: Francis E. Van Deveer, '95, 
29J seconds, Field Day, 1895; Jesse B. Hawley, '02, 29 seconds, 
Triangular Meet, 1900; Luke H. Cummings, '04, 28 seconds, 
Field Day, 1902; Luke H. Cummings, '04, 27^ seconds, Field 
Day, 1903; Carlyle H. Black, '08, 26 seconds, Field Day, 1908. 

Pole-vault: Stanley E. Gunnison, '99, and L. Cuyler Cross, 
ex-'oo, each 8 feet, 7 inches, Field Day, 1897; L. Cuyler Cross, 
ex-'oo, 9 feet, Field Day, 1899; Roy E. Briggs, '05, 9 feet, 9 



370 APPENDIX 

inches, Colgate Meet, 1902; Roy E. Briggs, '05, 9 feet, 11 inches, 
Field Day, 1903; Titus Sheard, '08, 10 feet, 3 inches, Field Day, 
1908; Leland N. Freeman, '13, 10 feet, 6 inches, Field Day, 
1912; Reginald J. Short, '18, 10 feet, 9 inches, N.Y.S.I.C, 1915. 
Putting sixteen-pound shot: James A. Harrigan, '96, 
32 feet, 6 inches, Field Day, 1893; Guy L. Harrington, 'oi, 33 
feet, 8 inches, Field Day, 1899; Guy L. Harrington, *oi, 33 feet, 

8 inches, Field Day, 1901; Milo G. Folsom, T.S., '05, 34 feet, 

9 inches; Field Day, 1903; Elbridge O. Hurlbut, Jr., '06, 35 
feet, 6 inches, Colgate Meet, 1906; F. Albert Sweet, Jr., '12, 
37 feet, 1 inch, Middlebury Meet, 1910; F. Albert Sweet, Jr., 
'12, 38 feet, 9J inches, Field Day, 1910; F. Albert Sweet, Jr., 
'12, 41 feet, 6 inches, Middlebury Meet, 1912; F. Albert Sweet, 
Jr., '12, 41 feet, 8 inches, Field Day, 1912. 

Throwing sixteen-pound hammer: Leslie W. Merri- 
man, 'oo, 82 feet, 2 inches, Field Day, 1898; Guy L. Harrington, 
'oi, 85 feet, 2 inches, Field Day, 1899; Leland J. Farmer, 'oo, 
91 feet, 8 inches, Field Day, 1900; Guy L. Harrington, 'oi, 100 
feet, Field Day, 1901; Milo G. Folsom, T.S., '05, 103 feet, Field 
Day, 1903; Everett A. Quackenbush, '07, 107 feet, 3! inches, 
Field Day, 1906; Everett A. Quackenbush, '07, 108 feet, 5 inches, 
Rochester Meet, 1907; F. Albert Sweet, Jr., '12, 112 feet, 8 
inches, Field Day, 1910; F. Albert Sweet, Jr., '12, 127 feet, 7 
inches, Field Day, 191 2. 

Running high jump: Stanley E. Gunnison, '99, 5 feet, 
if inches, Field Day, 1898; Murray A. Hines, '99, 5 feet, 3 inches, 
Field Day, 1899; Howard F. Corwin, '05, 5 feet, 6f inches, Col- 
gate Meet, 1902; F. Albert Sweet, Jr., '12, 5 feet, 7J inches, 
Hamilton Meet, 1910. 

Running broad jump: William L. Fitzgibbons, '82, 18 
feet, 3 inches, Field Day, 1879; Leslie W. Merriman, 'oo, 18 feet, 
6 inches, Field Day, 1900; Jesse B. Hawley, '02, 18 feet, 10^ 
inches, Field Day, 1901; Howard F. Corwin, '05, 20 feet, i\ 
inches, Field Day, 1902; Alexander Calder, '09, 20 feet, 4 inches, 
Field Day, 1907; Titus Sheard, '08, 21 feet, 11 inches, Field 
Day, 1908. 



LAURENTIAN BOOK CATALOGUE 

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS BY THE ALUMNI, AND SOME OF THE 
TEACHERS AND OFFICERS, OF ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, 
MAINLY BOOKS, BUT INCLUDING SOME SPECIAL ARTICLES OF 
SCIENTIFIC VALUE. 

Note: As this represents the first attempt to compile such a catalogue, and as 
the work has unavoidably been done hastily and under many disadvantages, it is 
probable, almost inevitable, that the following list is incomplete, perhaps quite seri- 
ously defeclive. 

Adler, Edward Anthony, '95 — Business Jurisprudence, 
December, 1914, and Labor, Capital, and Business at Common 
Law, January, 191 6, in Harvard Law Review. 

Atwood, Rev. Isaac Morgan, D.D., LL.D. — Have We 
Outgrown Christianity? 1870; Editor of The Latest Word of 
Universalism, 1878; Walks about Zion, 1880; Episcopacy, 1885; 
Revelation, 1893; A System of Christian Doctrines, 1900; Cul- 
ture (Phi Beta Kappa address), 1915. 

Austin, Viola, '74 — A Yuletide Idyl, 1915. 

Bacheller, Irving, '82, M.A., Litt.D., L.H.D. — The 
Master of Silence, 1892; The Still House of O'Darrow, 1894; 
Eben Holden, 1900; D'ri and I, 1901; Darrell of the Blessed 
Isles, 1903; Vergilius, 1904; Silas Strong, 1907; Uncle Eben's 
Last Day A-fishing, 1907; The Hand-made Gentleman, 1909; 
The Master, 1909; In Various Moods (poems), 1910; Keeping 
Up with Lizzie, 191 1; Charge It, 1912; The Turning of Griggsby, 
1913; The Marryers, 1914. 

Balch, Rev. William Stevens (Trustee) — Lectures on 
Language; Ireland as I saw It; A Peculiar People. 

Browne, Rev. Lewis Crebasa, D.D. (Trustee) — Poems. 

Betts, Rev. Frederic William, T.S., '87 — A Philosophy 
and Faith of Universalism, 1913; Billy Sunday, the Man and 
Method, 1916. 

Black, Alexander, M.A., '08 — (Inventor of picture plays, 
1893) Plays on a White Sheet, 1894; Story of Ohio, 1888; Pho- 
tography Indoors and Out, 1894; Miss Jerry, 1895; A Capital 
Courtship, 1897; Miss America, 1898; Modern Daughters, 1899; 
The Girl and the Guardsman, 1900; Richard Gordon, 1902; 
Thorney, 191 3. 



372 APPENDIX 

Chapin, Rev. James Henry, Ph.D. — The Creation and 
the Early Developments of Society, 1880; From Japan to Granada, 
1889. 

Cone, Rev. Orello, D.D. — Gospel Criticism; Paul, the 
Man and the Missionary; Rich and Poor in the New Testament; 
Articles in leading Reviews. 

Couden, Rev. Henry Noble, D.D., T.S. '78 — Book of 
Prayers, 191 3. 

Curtis, Gen. Newton Martin, LL.D. '06 — From Bull 
Run to Chancellors ville, 1906. 

Dennett, Roger Herbert, '98, M.D. — The Healthy 
Baby, 1912; Simplified Infant Feeding, 1915. 

Fisher, Rev. Lewis Beals, T.S. '8i, D.D., LL.D. — Prayers 
for the Home, 1890; History of the Universalist Church, 1897. 

Fisk, Rev. Richmond, D.D. — Articles in Quarterlies. 

Forbes, Rev. Henry Prentiss, D.D., T.S. '73 — The 
Johannine Literature and A6ts, 1907, in International Hand- 
books of the New Testament series. Contributor to American 
Journal of Theology. 

Gaines, Rev. Absalom Graves, D.D., LL.D. — The Divine 
Nature and Procedure, in The Latest Word of Universalism, 
1878; Sound Money, 1896. 

Gaines, Charles Kelsey, '76, M.A., Ph.D. — Gorgo, A 
Romance of Old Athens, 1903; The New Cushing's Manual 
(authorized revision), 191 2; Poems, short stories, and special 
articles. 

Gaines, Clarence Hurd, 'oo, M.A. — Numerous book 
reviews, especially in North American Review. 

Gunnison, Rev. Almon, D.D., LL.D. — Rambles Overland, 
1886; Wayside and Fireside Rambles, 1890. 

Gunnison, Herbert Foster, '8o, M.A. — Two Americans 
in a Motor Car; Flatbush of Today. 

Gunnison, Walter Balfour, '75, Ph.D. — First and 
Second Year Latin, 1902; Cicero (school edition with notes), 
1910. 

Hardacker, Martha A., '72, M.A. — Book reviews; Con- 
tributor to Atlantic Monthly. 

Hardie, George Robert, '90, M.A. — Translation of the 
Mostellaria of Plautus. 

Hardie, Jessie Stearns, '97 — Word Lists for Cato Maior 
de Senectute; Articles on the Birds, the Animals, and the Flora 
of the Adirondacks in Where to Go in the Adirondacks, 1909. 

Heaton, John Langdon, '8o, M.A. — History of Vermont, 
1889; Stories of Napoleon, 1896; The Quilting Bee (poems), 
1896; The Book of Lies, 1896; The Story of a Page, 191 1. 



APPENDIX 373 

Hepburn, Alonzo Barton (Trustee), LL.D., D.C.L. — 
Contest for Sound Money, 191 3; The Story of an Outing, 191 3; 
Artificial Waterways of the World, 1914; History of Currency 
in the United States, 191 5. 

Hervey, Rev. Alpheus Baker, T.S. '61, M.A., Ph.D.— 
Sea Mosses, 1881; Beautiful Wild Flowers of Field and Forest, 
1882; Translator of Guide to the Microscope in Botany (from 
the German of Dr. Behrens), 1885, and Manual of Microscopical 
Investigation in Botany (from the German of Dr. Strasburger), 
1886. 

Hines, Murray Arnold, '99, M.A., Ph.D. — Revision of 
the Atomic Weight of Cadmium, in Journal of American Chemi- 
cal Society, March, 1904. 

Kratzer, Rev. Glen Andrews, '95 — Dominion Within, 
1913; Spiritual Man, 1914; What Is Truth? 1914; The Cause 
and Cure for War, 1914; Revelation Interpreted, 191 5; The 
Universal Gospel, 1915. 

Lee, Frederic Schiller, '78, M.A., Ph.D. —The Vital 
Processes in Health (in In Sickness and Health), 1896; The 
School of Medicine (in A History of Columbia University), 1904; 
Fatigue (in The Harvey Ledtures), 1905-6; Scientific Features 
of Modern Medicine, 191 1. Translator and editor: German 
Physiology; An Outline of the Science of Life. Reviser and 
editor: Lessons in Elementary Physiology. Contributor to 
scientific journals. 

Lee, John Stebbins, D.D., LL.D. — Nature and Art in the 
Old World; Sacred Cities. 

Lent, Edward Burcham, '92 — Being Done Good, 1904; 
Cupid's Middleman, 1906. 

Lottridge, Silas Alpha, '92, Ph.M. — Animal Snap-shots, 
1905; Familiar Wild Animals, 1906. 

McGlauflin, Rev. William Henry, T.S. '82, M.A., D.D. 
— What the Universalist Church is Doing, 1909; Faith with 
Power, 191 2; Pamphlets on religions and patriotic subjects. 

Maclean, Rev. John Patterson, T.S. '69, D.D. — The 
Gospel of John, a Commentary. 

Merritt, Gen. Edwin Atkins (Trustee), LL.D. — Recol- 
lections, 1828-1911 (autobiographic), 191 1. 

Perin, Rev. George Landor, T.S. '78, D.D. — The Sunny 
Side of Life, 1901. 

Pullman, Rev. James Minton, T.S. *6i, D.D. — Articles 
in Appletons Cyclopaedia; Contributor to Andover Review; Les- 
sons for use in Sunday Schools. 

Robinson, Ernest Leffert, 'ii — Articles in the Engineer- 
ing News, 1 914-16. 



374 APPENDIX 

Sawyer, Rev. Thomas Jefferson (Trustee), D.D., LL.D. 
— Memoirs of Rev. Stephen R. Smith and Rev. H. B. Soule; 
Sawyer and Westcott Discussion of Endless Misery in the Very 
Words of the Authors; Articles in Quarterlies. 

Saxe, Rev. Asa (Trustee), D.D. — Punishment, in The Latest 
Word of Universalism, 1882; Numerous pamphlets. 

Seitz, Don Carlos, M.A. '06 — Discoveries in Every-day 
Europe, 1907; Writings by and about James McNeill Whistler, 
1910; Elba and Elsewhere, 1910; Surface Japan, 191 1; The 
Buccaneers (poems), 1912; Whistler Stories, 1913. 

Seitz, Rev. Josiah Augustus, '72 — The Colloquy (poem). 

Selleck, William Chamberlain, D.D. — The New Appre- 
ciation of the Bible, 1907. 

Sheard, Charles, '03, M.A., Ph.D. — The Effects of Current 
Density and Capacity on the Hydrogen and Argon Spectra, in 
Physical Review, October, 1908; Mathematical Studies in Optics, 
a series of articles in Optical Review, 1909-10; A Laboratory 
Manual of Experiments in General Physics; On the Free Vibra- 
tions of a Lecher System Using a Lecher Oscillator, I, in Physical 
Review, June, 191 1; On Secondary Ionization Produced by the 
Impact of Positive Ions on Solids, in Physical Review, May, 
191 2; On the Vibration of a Lecher System Using a Lecher Oscilla- 
tor, II, in Physical Review, July, 191 2; The Ionization Produced 
by Heated Salts, in Philosophical Magazine, March, 1913; On 
Temperature and Surface Conditions which Affect the Positive 
Ionization from Heated Platinum, in Physical Review, October, 
1913; On the Vibrations of a Lecher System, III, in Physical 
Review, March, 1914; On the Positive Ionization from Heated 
Platinum, in Philosophical Magazine, August, 19 14; Dioptric 
Formulae from Cylindrical Lenses Combined at Oblique Axes, 
in Physical Review, September, 1914; Cylindrical Lenses (a 
series of ten articles in Optical Journal and Review), 191 4-1 5; 
Spectra of Some Halogen Compounds and Phenomena Con- 
nected Therewith, in Ohio Journal of Science, February, 191 6. 

Shepard, John Frederick, 'oi, Ph.D. — Organic Changes 
and Feeling, in American Journal of Psychology, Vol. XVII, 
1906; The Change of Heart Rate with Attention, in Psychological 
Review, Vol. XVII, 1910 (with the cooperation of M. L. Billings); 
Studies in Association and Inhibition, in Psychological Review, 
Vol. XX, 1913; Maturation and Use in the Development of an 
Instinct, in Journal of Animal Behavior, Vol. Ill, 1913 (with the 
cooperation of F. S. Breed); The Circulation and Sleep, experi- 
mental investigations, accompanied by an atlas, University oj 
Michigan Studies, Scientific Series, Vol. I, 1914. 



APPENDIX 375 

Skinner, Charles Rufus (Trustee), LL.D. — Myths and 
Legends of Our Land; Myths and Legends of Our Possessions; 
Myths and Legends beyond Our Borders; Nature in a City 
Yard; With Feet to the Earth; Do Nothing Days; Flowers in 
the Park; Villon the. Vagabond, a play. 

Skinner, Rev. Clarence Russell, '04, M.A. — The Social 
Implications of Universalism, 1915. 

Sprague, Sarah Elmina, '66, M.S., Ph.D. — Merrill Ad- 
vanced Readers; Sprague Classical Readers; Lights to Litera- 
ture Readers; Primary Methods; Soul Culture. 

Stockton, Anna Hepsibah, '82, M.A., Ph.D. — Arachis 
Hypogaea L. (original monograph). 

Vail, Rev. Charles Henry, T.S. '92, B.D. — Modern 
Socialism, 1897; National Ownership of Railways, 1897; Scientific 
Socialism, 1899; The Industrial Evolution, 1899; Mission of the 
Working Class, 1900; The Socialistic Movement, 1901; The 
Trust Question, 1901; Socialism and the Negro Problem, 1903; 
Ancient Mysteries and Modern Masonry, 1909; The World's 
Saviors, 1913; Militant and Triumphant Socialism, 1913. 

Weaver, Clara, 'j6, M.A. — Editor Tom Brown's School- 
days. 

Weeks, Bessie Adams, 'j6 — The Merit System (prize 
essay, awarded by Women's Auxiliary of New York Civil Service 
Reform League), 1905. 



